
\.h%JU I 










Book • P^ 



I>-A.I>EIIS 



FROEBEL'S KINDERGARTEN, 



WITH SUGGESTIONS ON 



PRINCIPLES AND METHODS OF CHILD CULTURE 



IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES. 



C/ 



REPUBLISHED FROM 

Henry Barnard, LL. D., Editor. 



AMERICAN FROEBEL UNION EDITION. 



HARTFORD : 

Office of Barnard's American Journal op Educatiok. 

1881. 






1\^^ 



isy transfer frota 

I^t. OfflocLito. 

April 1»14. 





^y^c.'C^ . 



KINDERGARTEN AND CHILD-CULTURE PAPERS. 

PLAN OP PUBLICATION. 



LETTER TO PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN FROEBEL UNION. 

Dear Miss Peabody: I propose to do more in 1880 than 7. 
ha.ve done as publisher since 1838,* in any one year for the eluci- 
dation of Child- Culture, and particularly of the Kindergarten as 
devised by Froebel, and developed by himself and others who 
have acted in his spirit and after his methods. The conviction 
expressed by me in printed report | and public addresses in 1854, 
that "the system of infant culture, presented in the Interna- 
tional Exhibition of Educational Systems and Material at St. 
Martin's Hall, by Charles Hoffman of Hamburg, and illustrated 
by Madame Ronge in her Kindergarten in Tavistock Square, Lon- 
don, was by far the most original, attractive, and philosophical 
form of infant development the world has yet seen," has been 
deepened by much that I have since read and observed. But the 
suggestion in my Special Report as Commissioner of Education to' 
the Senate in 1868, and again to the House of Representatives in 
1870, on a System of Public Instruction for the District of Colum- 
bia, "that the first or lowest school in a graded system for cities 
should cover the play period of a child's life," and that "the great 
formative period of the human being's life " " in all that concerns 
habits of observation and early development, should be subjected 
to the training of the Kindergarten " — must be received now 
under at least the conditions of the original recommendation, A 
variety of agencies must be at work to train the teachers of each 
grade (and the Kindergartners with the rest) for their special 
duties, and to instruct and interest parents in the work of the 
school-room, and to give to them as such a direct right of inspec- 
tion and suggestion as to the schools where their children are in 
attendance. I believe that parents as such have more rights, and 
rights which should be respected by their own direct representa- 

*Iu the Connecticut Common School Journal from 1838 to 1842. and from 1849 to 1854; 
Educational Tracts (monthly) from 184-2 to 1845; the Journal of the Rhode Island Insti- 
tute of Instruction from 1S45 to 1848 ; and the American Journal of Education from 1855 
to 1880. In every year of these periodicals are elaborate Papers, original a'"' Belect«>f' - - 
the Principles aiid Methods of early education applicable to childr"'- 

tReport to the Governor of Connecticut on tK« t,-- .,<.-•„. 
Systems and Material a ~" 




J 



4* KINDERGARTEN AND CHILD-CULTURE PAPERS. 

tion in all educational boards, than are now conceded to them 
in State and municipal school organizations. 

All schools not under progressive teachers, and not subjected 
to frequent, intelligent, and independent supervision are sure to 
fall into dull, mechanical routine; and the Kindergarten, of all 
other educational agencies, requires a tender, thoughtful, practical 
woman, more than a vivacious, and even regularly educated girl. 
The power of influencing and interesting mothers in their home 
work and securing their willing co-operation, is an essential qualifi- 
cation of the Kindergartner. The selection of such cannot be 
safely left to school officers as now appointed, and who too often 
do not look beyond their neighbors, nephews, and nieces for can- 
didates. Until the principles of early child -culture are better 
understood, and school officers and teachers are more thoroughly 
trained in the best methods, the first establishment of Kindergar- 
t^xxo had better be loft to those who are already sufficiently interested 
to make some sacrifice of time or means in their behalf; and when 
found in successful operation and conforming to certain require- 
ments, they should be entitled to aid from public funds in proportion 
to attendance; and for such aid, be subject to official inspection. 

My desire is to help place this whole subject of the early devel- 
opment and training of the human being, especially of the claims 
and results of the Froebel Kindergarten in this work, clearly and 
fully before teachers, parents, and school officers; and in these 
efforts I solicit your advice and co-operation, and through you, of 
all who are laboring for the same object in the Home, the Kinder- 
garten, and the Primary School. 

My first plan of publication was to issue these Child-Culture 
Papers in separate Numbers or Parts alternating with the regular 
Numbers of my Journal, but not necessarily connected with the 
latter. On further consideration I have concluded to incorporate 
them all with the discussion of other educational topics, and then 
to issue the whole in a volume of Contributions to the literature of 
the Kindergarten. 

You will greatly oblige me by suggesting additions or modifica- 
tions to the accompanying scheme of treatment for the first portion 
of the volume (to page 400), as well as Papers with their authors 
on any topic in the wide range of child-culture for the concluding 
— irtion. \May I look to you for an article in the next Number on 
'^ ■ '>'lr>nr>->Qnt of Froebel's Kindergarten? 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE KINDERGARTEN. 



liETTER FROM MISS PEABODY TO THE EDITOR : 

Dear Sir : Nothing, it seems to me, can do more to establish 
the Kindergarten on a permanent foundation, and place its prin- 
ciples and methods fairly before American parents and teachers, 
than the full and exhaustive treatment which you propose to give, 
in the last volume of your truly Encyclopediac Journal, of the 
whole subject of child culture, as held by eminent educators, 
at home and abroad, giving due prominence to its latest de- 
velopment in the Kindergarten as devised by Frederic Frobel 
and others trained in his spirit and methods. Your willingr'; , 
to issue these papers in a connected form, and detached from 
other discussions, will enable Kindergartners to possess them- 
selves, at a moderate price, of a volume (a manual I think it will 
prove to be), in which the Frobel idea and institute will be pre- 
sented in their historical development, and in their pedagogical 
connection with other systems of human culture. I respond cor- 
dially to your invitation to co-operate in this work and to secure 
contributions from my correspondents and fellow-laborers in this 
field, in our own and other countries; and I will begin at once 
with the subject suggested by yourself, the "Development of the 
Kindergarten," as it was suggested to Frobel b}' his study of the 
vegetable kingdom of Nature, and his insight into the gracious 
purposes of the Father of Spirits. 

The Baroness Marenholtz-Biilow, in her " Reminiscences of 
Frobel," has told us of her discovery, in 1849, of this great gen- 
ius ; and her introduction of him to the Duke of Weimar, and 
to the leading educators of Germany ; and of the instantaneous 
acceptance of him by Diesterweg and others as " a prophet." 

Three years afterwards he died, when the reactionary govern- 
ment of Prussia had forbidden the introduction of his Kinder- 
gartens into the public system of education ; instinctively divin- 
ing that an education which recognizes every human being as 
self-active, and even creative, in his moral and intellectual na- 
ture, must be fatal, in the end, to all despotic governments. 

But already, through the friendship of the ducal family of 



6* FROEBEL'S KINDERGAKTEN. 

Weimar, Frobel's normal school for Kindergartners was estab- 
lished at Marienthal ; and through the influence of Diesterweg 
over Madame Johanna Goldschmidt, he had established another 
at the free city of Hamburgh ; and the governmental prohibition 
in Prussia had stimulated the founding of private Kindergartens 
in Berlin and elsewhere. Some years after, his eminent and ap- 
preciative pupil and chosen apostle, the Baroness, brought abouf- 
the rescinding of the prohibitory decree. Nevertheless, not even 
yet, as you will see from a letter I send you, written by Frau Ber- 
tha Meyer on their present condition in Berlin, are there any but 
private Kindergartens in Prussia. These, indeed, are patronized 
by the best people, led by the Crown Princess of Germany, — Vic- 
toria of England, who has not only had her own children edu- 
cated by strictly Frobelian Kindergartners, but has interested 
among others the Princess Helena of Russia in the system, and 
lets herself be named as Lady Patroness of the training school 
for Kindergartners at 17 Tavistock square, London. 

Only two governments in Europe yet have recognized the Kin- 
dergarten as a public interest — that of Austria, which imposes on 
all pupils of normal schools in the empire, of whatever grade of 
instruction, to make themselves acquainted with Frobel's princi- 
ples ; and makes compulsory on the people to send all their chil- 
dren under six to some Kindergarten ; also the government of 
Italy, where Kindergartens were first established by the Italian 
Minister of Education, whose attention had been directed to the 
subject, in 1868, by our own American minister, the Hon. George 
P. Marsh, This attempt was, however, rather premature, for 
Italian Kindergartners were not yet properly prepared for the 
work, and though Frobel's educational method is found to be 
harmonious with the deepest motherly instinct, when that is un- 
derstood, it does not come by instinct into a systematic form. In 
1871-2 the Baroness Marenholtz-Biilow was solicited by the Ital- 
ian minister to go to Florence and lecture upon the training, and 
she taught a large class. The resuvie of her lectures was printed 
in a pamphlet, in 1872, and translated and published by our Bu- 
reau of Education at Washington, in its circular of July, and 
forms an admirable syllabus for the training of teachers. In that 
same year, 1872, Madame Salis-Schwab introduced the system at 
Naples at great expense to herself of money and labor, and gained 
from the municipality the promise to make it the first grade of 
the public education, when Kindergartners should be trained for 



FROEBEL'S KINDERGARTEN. 7* 

it. You must publish in your volume the report of the success- * 
ful Kindergarten now kept in the GoUegio Medici, a copy of 
which I hope to furnish you. This proves one of the greatest 
charities in Europe, and princes send their children as pupils. 

But though the European governments do not yet adopt the 
system, Kindergartens are established widely in all the German 
L-tates, in Sweden, Denmark, Russia, Switzerland, France, Bel- 
gium, even in Spain, also in England, Scotland and Ireland ; and 
wherever there are Kindergartens there are more or less inade- 
quate attempts at training Kindergartners, Koehler's establish- 
ment at Saxe-Gotha, and lately the Frobel Stifturg at Dresden, 
being the best. The latter will probably swallow up the former, 
as Koehler has lately died. 

In England, in 1872, there was an association formed, among 
whose members are famed scientists like Huxley, as well as dig- 
nitaries of the Church of England, who have founded an institu- 
tion for training Kindergartners at Manchester, to be examined 
for certificates after two years study with observation in a model 
Kindergarten now kept by Miss Anna Snell, a pupil of Midden- 
dorf. Two years afterwards another training class was founded, 
as a part of the Stockwell training school for primary teachers 
in London, S. W., and another pupil of Middendorf, Miss Elea- 
nor Heerwart, who had been keeping Kindergarten some years 
near Dublin, Ireland, was made its teacher and the principal of 
the Stockwell model Kindergarten. Also, in 1874, the London 
Frobel Society was founded by Miss Doreck and Mr. Payne, 
whose present president. Miss Emily Shirreff, and her sister, the 
Hon. Mrs. Grey, have publislied most valuable lectures, among 
which I would mention, as most important, Miss Shirreff's " Life 
of Frobel," and her essay on the right of his Kindergarten to 
the name of the " New Education." This London society has a 
monthly meeting and lecture, and I can send you for your volume 
one of these: Miss E. A. Manning's lecture on "The Discour- 
agements and Encouragements of the Kindergartuer." She has 
sent it to me to be read at the meeting of our American Frobel 
Union, which was appointed for December 29-31, 1879, but had 
to be postponed. Some other articles were sent ; one by Miss 
Shirreff, one by Miss Lychinska, and one by Miss Heerwart, 
which are at your service also; and I hope to have Miss Shirreff's 
article about a chart of Kindergarten employments, made by 
Madame du Portugall for the direction of the Swiss Kindergart- 



8* FROEBEL'S KINDERGARTEN. 

ners, and which has been asked for by the English Education 
Journal for publication in its pages. 

It was the Baroness Marenholz-Bulow who may be said to 
have started and done the most in this great propagandism. 
Acknowledged by Frobel, in 1849, as the one who more deeply than 
any one else saw into his "last thought," she must be considered 
as his most complete representative, and most effective apostle. 

In 1858 she went to Paris and, taking rooms at the Louvre, 
summoned to her parlor-lectures the most distinguished men of 
the time in Paris, of all churches, Catholic, Protestant and Jew- 
ish, and outsiders of every school of philosophy. Their wonderful 
unanimity in accepting the idea and system, as developed in her 
lectures, was expressed in letters to her from all of them, includ- 
ing the Cardinal of Tours, afterwards Archbishop of Paris, the 
Abbe Michaud, and many Catholic savants; Michelet, Edgar 
Quinet, Auguste Comte, Protestant pastors. Harmonists, etc , 
etc. These letters she has printed as an appendix, making one- 
half of her volume, which is entitled " Die Arbeit," relative to 
Frobel's Education, which was the resume of her lectures at the 
Louvre. This unanimity of assent is the best proof that the 
element in which the Kindergarten works is that of universal 
humanity, not yet narrowed from "the kingdom of heaven," 
which Christ declared that children represent, in their pre-intel- 
lectual era, when the Kindergarten takes them from the moth- 
er's nursery, to initiate them into the society of their equals. 
Madame Marenholtz also carried the system into Belgium, and 
the first guide-book of the method " Le Jardin des Enfants " 
was published in Brussels by F. Claasen, with an introduction 
by herself. She then went into England, where, however, she 
had been preceded by Madame Ronge, one of that Meyer family 
of North Germany which has been always a munificent benefac- 
tor of education, — Henry Adolf having given to Hamburg its 
Zoological Garden and Aquarium, the finest foundations of the 
kind in the world ; and he is still the most enthusiastic patron 
of Erobel's Kindergarten. 

But in England some accidental collateral circumstances inter- 
fered with Madame Rouge's perfect work, and broke her heart. 
The seeds of Kindergarten were however planted in several local- 
ities, and some good work done, among others by Madame du 
Portugall at Manchester, who is now the Inspector of Primary 
Education in her native city, Geneva, Switzerland, and is gradu- 



FKOEBEL'S KINDERGARTEN. 9* 

ally making the Kindergarten the foundation of the primary ed- 
ucation there. 

But the most important establishment on the Continent for the 
education of Kindergartners is in Dresden, founded in 1872 by 
the Union, which grew up since 1867, out of the Committee of 
Education of the Congress of Philosophers that met in Prague 
that year. This committee was appointed to inquire into the 
ultimate results on individuals of the Kindergarten education 
given by Frobel with Middendorf, who had been his faithful friend 
and coadjutor at the school for boys founded by them both at 
Keilhau in 1817, long before the Kindergarten was named in 
1839. It took more than twenty years of earnest experiment- 
ing to enable Frobel to arrive at the complete Kindergarten 
practically. In that year he gave it its very expressive name. 
As long before as 1827 he had published ErzieJiung der Mensch 
(the Education of Mankind), a book addressed to the motlier, in 
which is found all the elementary principles of Kindergarten 
except one. In this book he took the ground that the mother 
exclusively should be the educator of the child till it was seven 
years old ; but a dozen years of observation had taught him in 
1839, that no mother had the leisure and strength to do for her 
child all that needed to be done in its first seven years, without 
assistants and in the narrow precinct of a single family. For 
the social and moral nature, after three years old, requires a 
larger company of equals. The Kindergarten does just what 
neither the home nor the primary school can do for a child. 

In 1867, at the re-assembling of the " Congress of Philoso- 
phers " at Frankfort-on-the-Main, the Committee of Inquiry ap- 
pointed at Prague, of which Prof. Fichte of Stuttgart, son of the 
great J. G. Fichte, was chairman, reported that the pupils taught 
at the Kindergarten age by Frobel himself, had been looked up 
at the universities and elsewhere, and been found to be of excep- 
tion:..! intelligence : and that they themselves ascribed it to their 
Frobel education in the " connection of contrasts " or " law of 
equipoise," that secret of all nature and true life. 

At this meeting at Frankfort-on-the-Main, the Baroness Maren- 
holtz had four afternoons assigned her to explain Frobel's idea 
and method, and the result was the formation of the General 
Union, and the establishment of its organ. Die Erziehung der 
Ge(/<iiiwart, together with the Training College, at Dresden. 

I will send you the first report of the activity of this society 



10* 



FROEBEL'S KINDERGARTEN. 



wliicli you can use if you think best in making up your volume. 
Mrs. Kriege lias translated and sent it to me for the meeting, 
which is postponed until Easter. I will also send the Baroness's 
own letter to me, though it is rather sad. She feels the immense 
difficulties of planting, amid the stereotyped conservatisms of 
Europe, this living germ, which requires the fresh-plowed un- 
worn soil, and all the enlivening influences of the American na- 
tionality, in its pristine vigor, as is intimated by the flourishing 
growth at St. Louis and California, especially of the public Kin- 
dergartens there. 

BRIEF NOTICE OF THE KINDERGARTEN IN AMERICA. 

After your own articles on Frobel in your Journal in 1856 
and 1868, nothing was said in America till the review in the 
Christian Examiner, in 1859, Boston, of " Le Jardin des in- 
fants." In the course of the next ten years some innocent, 
because ignorant, inadequate attempts were made at Kindergar- 
tens, but without such study into the practical details of the 
method as to do any justice to Erobel's idea ; and, on the whole, 
the premature attempt was unfortunate. The most noted one 
was my own in Boston ; but I must do myself the justice to say 
that I discovered its radical deficiency, by seeing that the results 
promised by Frobel, as the fruit of his method, did not accrue, but 
consequences that he deprecated, and which its financial success 
and the delight of the children and their parents in the pretty 
play-school did not beguile me into overlooking. Hence I went, 
in 1867, to Europe, to see the Kindergartens established and 
taught by Frobel himself and his carefully educated pupils ; and 
I returned in 1868, zealous to abolish my own and all similar 
mistakes, and establish the real tJdng, on the basis of an adequate 
training of the Kindergartners. 

My plan was to create, by parlor lecturing in Boston, a demand 
that should result in our sending to Lubeck, Germany, for Friiu- 
lein Marie Boelte (now Mrs. Kraus-Boelte of New York) to 
come to Boston and establish a model Kindergarten and a train- 
ing school for Kindergartners, inasmuch as she was one of the 
few ladies of position and high culture in Germany who, from 
purely disinterested motives, had become a Kindergartner. She 
had studied three years with Frobel's widow in Hamburg, and 
went to England with Madame Ronge, and was her most efficient 
assistant, and had a high reputation there, where she had ac- 



FROEBEL'S KINDERGAJITEN. 



IV 



quired the language in that perfection necessary to teach little 
children orally. 1 knew, from a distinguished relative of hers, 
that she would be willing to sacrifice everything — and it was a 
great deal she had to sacrifice — to come to America, because she 
knew that Frobel had said that the spirit of the American na- 
tionality was the only one in the world with which his creative 
method was in complete harmony, and to which its legitimate 
institutions would present no barriers. 

But when I came back to Boston, I found Madame Kriege and 
her daughter already there, and the enterprise had to contend 
with an unprepared public, which had been also misled by my 
own unfortunately precipitate attempts, and others which had 
perhaps grown out of mine. 

But something valuable was done by the intelligent and faith- 
ful labors of Mrs. Kriege and daughter during the next four 
years ; and then Mii^s Boelte came to New York on invitation of 
Miss Haines of Gramercy Park, at the moment that Mrs." Kriege 
and her daughter returned to Europe for a vacation. A pupil of 
Madame Kriege, Miss Garland, who associated with herself a 
pupil of her own, Miss Weston, has carried on the Kindergarten 
training school of Boston with great fidelity. These two train- 
ing schools are still doing the best work. Mrs. Kriege and 
daughter also returned to America in 1874, and as Miss Boelte 
married Mr. Kraus and became independent in her worlc, they 
took her place with Miss Haines for two years. There have also 
branched from Mrs. Kraus's school the work of Miss Blow, who 
has kept a free training school at St. Louis, since 1872, and is now 
inspector of the more than fifty free Kindergartens established 
by the municipality of that city ; and a training school in Iowa 
by another of Mrs. Kraus's pupils. Mrs. John Ogden of Worth- 
ington, Ohio, is also a valuable trainer, a pupil of Miss Garland; 
also another. Miss Alice Chapin, in Indianapolis, Indiana, and 
another in connection with the Brooks school of Cleveland, Ohio. 
Of Mrs. Ogden's pupils. Miss Sara Eddy and Mrs. A. H. Put- 
nam, both of Chicago, and Miss Burritt, known as "the Centen- 
nial Kindergartner of the Great Exhibition," and the Misses 
Mcintosh of Montreal, P. Q., are at present training Kindergart- 
ners with success. Mrs. Van Kirk of Philadelphia, who studied 
three years with the best pupils of Miss Garland, practicing all 
the while in a Kindergarten of her own, in which one of them 
was principal, has also a training school in Philadelphia. One 



12* FKOEBEL'S KINDERGARTEN. 

of Miss Burritt's pupils has this year been appointed training 
teacher of a class of Kindergartners at the Baltimore Normal 
school, where she also keeps a model Kindergarten. 

There are three other training schools kept by German ladies — 
Miss Anna Held, in Nashua, N. H., Miss Susie Pollock, in Wash- 
ington, D. C, both of whom were graduates of a training school 
in Berlin, and Miss Marwedel, once having her training school in 
Washington, and now in Berkeley, California, a woman of bril- 
liant genius, who has studied Frobel's works by herself very pro- 
foundly, according to the testimony of Madame Kriege, and who 
proved her understanding of Frobel by the beautiful results in 
her Kindergarten at Washington. A pupil of hers, Miss Graves, 
succeeded her in Washington when she left for California, and 
Miss Pollock and her mother have a training school there. There 
must be a good deal to choose with respect to these several train- 
ers. Of those trained in Germany I can myself form no judg- 
ment, with the exception of Madame Kraus-Boelte, all of whose 
remarkable antecedents I know, and whose work, both here and 
in Europe, I know. She has the obvious advantage of having 
been more than twice as long at work as any other, and from 
spontaneous enthusiasm, and having had the nearest relations to 
Frobel. Mrs. Kraus-Boelte always cries aloud and spares not in 
deprecation of recent students and not long experienced Kinder- 
gartners undertaking to train others, and has much and most true 
things to say of the profoundness of insight and depth of expe- 
rience necessary in order to be sufficient to undertake the respon- 
sibilities of a Kindergartner, which are even greater than those of 
the Christian clergyman, because children are more utterly at the 
mercy of their Kindergartner than the adult at that of the cler- 
gyman. Mrs. Kraus would have the American Frobel Union do 
something very emphatic to check those who, as she thinks, rush 
too rashly upon holy ground, where "angels fear to tread." 

But no society has the power to take the place of conscience 
and reason, which are the only real guardians of the purity and 
efficiency of the Kindergartner's or of the clergyman's office. 
All that the American Frobel Union can do is to provide a stand- 
ard library of Kindergarten literature, and at its meetings, and 
by correspondence with Kindergartners' reunions and auxiliary 
societies, propagate the science and art of Frobel, and do its best 
to keep the Kindergartners careful and studious, humble and dil- 
igently progressive ; fitting themselves to lioe with the children 



FROEBEL'S KINDERGARTEN 23* 

genially and to their edification, by themselves becoming as little 
children, and living their own lives over again, religiously and 
morally, in the light of Frobel's idea, and so becoming capable 
of character-forming and mind-building, by sincere study of nat- 
ure, material, human and divine. 

The Union was formed primarily to protect the name of Kin- 
dergarten from being confounded with methods of infant-training 
inconsistent with Frobel's idea and system, and which was as- 
sumed, without sincerity, as a cover of quite another thing, which 
calls itself " the American Kindergarten," and claimed Frobel's 
authority expressly for its own devices. The society has already 
done this work by giving a nation-wide impression that there is 
the difference of a genuine and a contrary thing, and awakening 
care and inquiry in those who are seeking the most desirable edu- 
cation for their little children. 

I must not omit to speak of one professor of Frobel's art and 
science, whose works sufficiently praise him — I mean Mr. W. N. 
Hailman, author of an admirable little work called " Kindergar- 
ten Culture," also " Letters to Mothers," " Lectures to Kinder- 
gartners " (the two latter first published in " the New Educa- 
tion," which he edits, but now to be had in pamphlet form). This 
gentleman, who learnt the system in his native city of Zurich, has 
been engaged for ten years and more in this country in the Ger- 
man-American schools of Louisville, Milwaukee, and now in De- 
troit, and earned the money to enable his wife (American-born) 
to carry on a Kindergarten, as he is doing again now in Detroit, 
and also keeping with her a free training school for Kindergart- 
ners in that city. I do not know anyone who has made such sub- 
stantial sacrifices to the cause, or is doing more for it now. 

And now a word upon the American Frobel literature and I 
have done. 

The first publication in America, except* some letters by Mr. 
John Kraus, in the Army and Navy Gazette and other newspa- 
pers, and my own letters in the New York Herald, of 1867-8, 
was the "Plea for Frobel's Kindergarten as the Primary Art 
School," appended to the " Artisan and Artist Identified," — an 
American re-publication of Cardinal Wiseman's lecture on " the 
Relations of the Arts of Design and the Arts of Production," 

♦Earlier than either was a pamphlet issue of an article in the American Journal of 
Education for September, 1856, which by successive enlargements in 1858, 1861, and 
1867, was continued on the List of Barnard's Educational Publications, and substan- 
tially embodied in the first edition of " German Pedagogy " in 1867. 



14* FROEBEL'S KINDERGARTEN. 

Boston, 1869 ; the next was the article on " Kindergarten Cul- 
ture," in the Report of the Bureau of Education for 1870. I 
, see you mean to re-publish these in your volume. I also re- 
published, revised in 1869, the " Moral Culture of Infancy and 
Kindergarten Guide," by which I had misled the public, previ- 
ous to my visit to Europe, in 1867 ; and in 1873, two lectures, one 
on the " Education of the Kindergartner," and one on the 
"Nursery," in which I state the grounds of Frobel's authority. 
In that same year came out the '^Resume" of Mrs. Eriege's in- 
structions to her training class, which she names "The Child in 
its threefold Nature as the Subject of the Kindergarten," and 
with most honorable intentions she called it a free rendering of 
the Baroness Marenholtz, which has unfortunately led many to 
suppose it was a translation of the Baroness's book on " the Be- 
ing of a Child," which it is not, as she desires should be dis- 
tinctly stated, that it may not preclude a possible English trans- 
lation of that work.* 

But in 1871, Milton Bradley, a toy manufacturer of Spring- 
field, Mass., and a very intelligent man, became interested, by 
Mr. Edward Wiebe, in the Kindergarten idea, and under his ad- 
vice, undertook the manufacture of Frobel's materials, in the 
faith that there would presently be a remunerative demand for 
them. He also published a manual to show their use, which was 
largely a selection from Goldammer's German Guide, both as to 
plates and matter; to which Mr. Wiebe prefixed also an exact 
translation of the Baroness Marenholtz's introduction to that 
work (but without giving credit). The work was called " Paradise 
of Childhood," but was a different thing from Lina Morgenstern's 
German book of the same title. Within a year, Mr. Bradley has 
re-published the plates of this work, but with other letter-press 
of a superior character, credited to the Kindergartners of Flor- 
ence, Massachusetts. I think Mr. Bradley himself was the 
author of the very valuable chapter on the manipulation of the 
scalene triangle. The chapters on the Second Gift and the Fifth 
Gift are better than those of any other manual that I have seen. 
In 1873, I began to edit the Kindergarfen Messenger, and 
carried it through the years 1873-4-5 and 7, affording many able 
persons opportunity to express themselves. There is one article 
which I have twice printed and which I wish you would re-print 

*Such a translation has been made by Miss Alice M. Christie, (London : W. Swan 
Sonnescheiu, 15 Paternoster Square, 1879,) and will be republished in the Kinder- 
garten Papers. 



FROEBEL'S KINDERGARTEN, 15* 

in your volume : Miss Garland's paper on Frobel's " Law of Con- 
trasts and their Connection," wliicli is the best statement I have 
seen made of this fundamental principle, in which lies the secret 
of the power of the system. There may be other articles you 
may wish to preserve ; especially do I wish to suggest to you to 
consider Mrs. Aldrich's address to her mothers' class in an article 
called "Mothers' Unions," in the double number for March 1877. 

During 1876 our Kindergarten Messages were put into the New 
England Journal of Education, but discontinued because the 
editor advertised and recommended the spurious so-called Amer- 
ican Kindergarten ; and since 1877 the Neiv Education, edited 
by Mr. Hailman, has been our Kindergarten Messenger. 

The American Frobel Union commenced, in 1871, the Stand- 
ard Library for Kindergartners and Parents, by publishing Mrs. 
Horace Mann's translation of the Baroness Marenholtz's "Rem- 
iniscences of Frobel," and in 1878, a fac simile reproduction of 
Frobel's most characteristic work, " Mother Play and Nursery 
Songs," with the music and engravings ; the songs being trans- 
lated in the very cadence of the music by Miss F. E. Dwight, 
and the explanatory notes by Miss Josephine Jarvis. When our 
treasury shall be large enough to afford it, a translation of the 
Erziehung der Mensch and his posthumous works, edited by 
Wichard Lange of Hamburg (son-in-law of Middendorf), will be 
added. Meanwhile the Union considers, as a part of the Stand- 
ard Library, Mrs. Kraus-Boelte's Guide and Manual, which is in 
the course of publication by E. Steiger, 25 Park Place, New York, 
and most of the Kindergarten literature which he publishes, in 
English and German, and especially his " Kindergarten Tracts," 
so called, which he sends to all who ask for them, post-paid, on 
receipt of an order with six cents. The 5th, 9th, and 14th of 
these tracts have diffused an immense amount of information all 
over the country. Mr. Steiger also imports all the materials of 
occupation and gifts and is a truly liberal propagandist of the 
idea of Frobel. 

But I must here put in a caveat. The interest of manufactur- 
ers and of merchants of the gifts and materials is a snare. It 
has already corrupted the simplicity of Frobel in Europe and 
America, for his idea was to use elementary forms exclusively, 
and simple materials, — as much as possible of these being pre- 
pared by the children themselves. 

And here I would say a word respecting all reputed improve- 



16^^' FROEBEL'S KINDERGARTEN. 

ments on Frobel. Of these pretensions we cannot be too jealous. 
Frobel, in his half century of experimenting, very thoroughly 
explored the prime necessities of the Kindergarten age. Chil- 
dren under seven years old, at least at three or four, are very 
much alike in all countries and ages. 

And I am inclined to think that but one harmony of nature, 
available for earliest education, was left undiscovered by Frobel, 
and that is the discovery of Mr. D. Batchellor, of the use to be 
made of colors in teaching children the elements of music. He 
is to explain this and his happy experiment in Miss Garland's 
Kindergarten at our next meeting. 

But the heights and depths of the moral and religious nature 
of children will open more and more on mankind, as progress is 
made in moral refinement ; and will open on the Kindergartners 
deeper and clearer views of Frobel's moral idea, which it seems 
to me is nothing less than Christ's idea of the child, of whom 
He says, " Of such is the kingdom of heaven," and " He that 
receiveth a little child in my name receiveth me." 

Before you close your projected volume of the history and ex- 
position of Frobel's reform, I hope we shall have our postponed 
meeting, and hear the papers from Mr. Batchellor and others, on 
practical points of Kindergartening ; and those of Dr. W. T. 
Harris, Rev. R. H. Newton, Prof. Felix Adler, Dr. J. S. White, 
Thomas Gushing, and other princii^als, on its relations to the state, 
church, and the progressive education of humanity. 

Elizabeth P. Peabody. 



TIE KINDEEGAETEN AND ITS EOUNDEE. 



PREFATORY NOTE.* 

To aid parents and teachers to a thorough understanding of the 
Kindergarten — its genesis and growth, its theories and philosophy, 
its method and processes, and to some extent its relations to other 
systems of early training — is the object of this publication. Our 
hopes of a better popular education for our country and the world 
rest on the universal understanding and recognition in the family 
and the school, of the fundamental ideas of Froebel as to the law of 
human development, and of the intuitional method of both Pesta- 
lozzi and Froebel, as the surest process at once of mental discipline 
and valuable attainment. 

In Froebel's letter to the Duke of Meiningen, as published by 
Dr. Wichard Lange, we have the key to some of the mental peculi- 
arities of the founder of the Kindergarten in his own family, school, 
and self training ; and in his letter to the Princess Sophia of Rudold- 
stadt on the system of Pestalozzi we find the germs of that child 
culture which it was the blessed results of his restless and self- 
sacrificing life-work to develop aad mature. The gradual ripening 
of the Kindergarten is shown in his letters to Barop in 1829, and 
again in 1836 and 1839, until, in 1840, he appeals to the women of 
Germany " to assist in founding an institution for the nurture of 
children, which shall be named Kindergarten, on account of its inner 
life and aim." 

In the published observations and experience of many thoughtful 
educators and teachers in our own and other countries, we have aids 
to a fuller understanding of the underlying principles of Froebel, to 
such modifications of his Kindergarten method and processes, as 
peculiarities of individual children, or family and national surround- 
ings may demand, and, above all, to such changes in the subjects and 
methods of existing primary instruction, as will make the transition 
from improved home and Kindergarten training to the School, easy 
and progressive. If the Kindergarten is to form an integral part of 
the popular education of our country, its aims and methods must be 
felt in the Public Primary School. 

• Froebel, Kindergarten, and Child Culture Papers : Republished from The American 
Journal of Education, Uenry Barnard, LL.D., Editor. Hartford, 1831. 756 pages, 
American Froebel Union Edition. $3.50. 



FROEBEL, KINDERGARTEN, AND CHILD CULTURE PAPERS. 

Kepublished from Barnard's American Journal of Education in a Volume of 720 pages, la 
furtberaBce of the objects of the American Froebel Union. -. 

CONTENTS. 



In.trod'uotioTi— Development of the Kindergarten 1— xvi 

1. Lbttbr op Editor op American Journal op Education iii 

2. Lbttbr op Miss E. P. Peabodt v 

Progress made in Europe vii 

Begfinnings made in the United States «-. xi 

I. FROEBEL AND HIS EDUCATIONAL WORK. 

]yC*ziaoir of Frederich. August -BVoebel 9-128 

1. Phincipai. Events in his Personal History 11 

2. Principal Evbnts in the Proebelian Circle 15 

A.ids to tlie Tlnderstanding of IHroebel 17 

1. AtTTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OP HOME AND SCHOOL TRAINING 21-48 

Letter to Duke of M einingen 21 

Early Childhood— Loss of Mother— Local Influences 22 

Family Life— First Entrance into School— Key to Inner Life 23 

Joy and Strength in Self-Activity— Discordants— Harmony of Nature 24 

Reconcilement of Differences— Life away from Home 26 

Physical Growth and Play— Religious and Social Culture 29 

Influence of Manner on Pupils— Choice of Vocation 30 

Passion for Theatricals— Studies at Jena — Botany — Zoology 33 

Death of Father— Land Surveying— Shelling'e Bruno 34 

Philosophy and Art — Influence of Nature— Architect 35 

Choice of Teaching for Life Work— Model School— Private Tutor 37 

Life as an Educator— Play, Activity, and Gifts 41 

Residence with Pestalozzi 1808-1810— Study of Pestalozzianism 42 

Studies of Language and Natural History in GOttiiigen 43 

Lectures in Berlin University — Experiences of Soldier's Life 45 

Acquaintance with Middendorff and Langethal— Museum of Mineralogy 4ft 

Supplement by Dr. W. Lange 47 

2. Proebel's Studies in Pestalozzianism— Basis op His Own System 49-68 

Letter to the Princess Sophia of Sch warzburg Rudoldstadt, 1820 49' 

Aim and Subject of Pestalozzi's Pedagogy— Man in his Totality 49 

The Child as a Sentient Being— The Book for Mothers 50 

Development by the conscious inspection of Nature— Senses 52 

The Book for Mothers never completed— Language 54 

Law of Contrasts and their Reconcilement 55 

Exaltation into a Culture of Intelligence and Sympathy 56 

DiBcrimination— Imitation— Power of Rythm 57 

Computability— Ideas of Number— Method with Objects 58 

Form— Elementary Ideas— Educative Influences of Play 59 

Manner of handling Subjects of School Instruction 61 

Not by Books, but by Real Objects and Intuitions 63 

Teachers must be penetrated with the true ?pirit and trained 62 



FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL WORK. 

AsBietants— Pupils in training for teaching 83 

Organization of a School of Eighty Pupils— Two Divisions 63 

First Division composed of Children under Eight Years— Nurture 63 

Second Division — Lower and Upper Class 63 

Upper Class — Study and Productive Industries — Technology 64 

Every Subject treated in Organic Unity of tho ChUd and PupU 65 

Every Member of the School must be regular and punctual 65 

Special Educational Aims — Order and Progressive Growth 65 

Possibility of Introducing Pestalozzi's method into Families 66 

Connection of Elementary Instruction with higher Scientific Culture 67 

3. Lange's Remininiscenses of Froebel 69-80 

Froebel at Hamburg in 1849— Address to Women's Union 69 

What is New in Froebel's Aim and Method 71- 

Fundamental Ideas of Rousseau, Pestalozzi, and Froebel 72 

Diesterweg's Adaptation of Pestalozzi's Views to Popular Schools 73 

Personal Relations of Froebel— Experience in Teaching 74 

Development of Individual Men and the Race— Macrocosm and Microcosm.. 76 

Family School at Griesheim— Institution at Keilhau — Marriage 77 

Publication 1819— 1826— Institute at Wattensee— F. Froebel and Barop 79 

Girls School at Willisau— Official Report of Berne Cantonal Commission 80 

Educational Institute for Orphans, and Teacher's Class at Burgdorf 80 

Genesis of the Kindergarten at Blankenberg in 1837 81 

Come let us live with our Children— Kindergarten in Dresden in 1839 81 

4. The Kindergaeten— Genesis, Name, and Objects 82-96 

(1) WiNTHUR— Froebel's First Announcement to Barop in 1829 82 

Letter from Burgdorf in 1836 to the Froebelian Circle 82 

Inauguration of plan at Blankenberg in 1837— Sonntagsblat 83 

Appeal to the Women of Germany at Guttenberg Festival 1840 83 

Foundation of the Universal German Institution at Keilhau 84 

Publication of Bie Mutter und JTose/ieder— Pictures, Play and Songs 84 

Explanation of Gifts for Play— Movement, Plays, and Songs 85 

Intercourse with Nature and Social Phenomena 87 

Domestic Education improved by Kindergarten Pupils 88 

Women to be trained as Mothers and Nurses , 89 

Organic Connection between the Kindergarten and School 90 

(2) Payne— Froebel's Interpretation of the Activity of Children 91 

Play the Natural Occupation of the Child in its normal state 92 

Theory in Practice— Gifts for the Culture of Observation 93 

Objections to the System Considered 95 

5. Barop— Critical. Moments in Froebel's Institutions 97-104 

Financial Difficulties in Keilhau 97 

Froebel's Training Institute at Marienthal— Marriage. 97 

Son of a Prince taken into the Institution- Visit to Switzerland 100 

Difficulties from Priestly Opposition— Interpositicn of Pfyffer 101 

Meeting of the Cantonal Teachers for three months at Burgdorf 103 

Origin of the name Kindergarten 104 

6. Zeh— Official Inspection Afro Commendation of Keilhau 105-110 

Disturbance in Government Circles about Burchenschaften 105-110 

Suspicions of Barop in 1824— Withdrawal of Children 105 

Froebel's Faith in God in the Darkest Hour— Idea of Kindergarten 106 

Teachers reported in 1824— Testimony to their Fidelity 108 

Unity of Life in Teachers and Pupils— Institutional Teaching 109 

7. Unity of Life— Ideal and Actual 111-115 

8 Prussian Interdict of the Kindergarten 116 

9. Last Days— Marenholtz, and Middendorpp 117-124 

Teacher's Convention at Gotha— Last Illness— Funeral 117 

10. Collected Writings, by Dr. W. Lanqe 125-126 

Preface and Contents 125 

11. Publications relating to Froebkl and his System ..127-128 



FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL WORK. 5 

II. FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAIi SYSTEM. 

Bdvicational "Vievv^s as Kxpoaan.d.ed. Tny B^riends 129-400 

I. "WiUiam ItliddemlorlT 129-144 

Memoir and Educational Work 129 

Thonglits on tlie Kindergarten — Devotion of a Life 142 

H. Freidricli AdolpU Willielm Diesterweg 145-160 

Acceptance and Advocacy of Froebel' b Cliild-Culture 151 

III. Bertlia V. Mareiilioltz— Bulow 149-288 

1. Memorial of a Wonderful Educational Mission 145 

2. PUBUCATIONS IK ELUCIDATION OP FROEBEL'S THEORIES 159 

The Child— Nature, and Nurture According to Froebel 109 

1. The Child in its Helplessness and Infinite Capacities 161-169 

(1) Relations to Nature— Subject to her Laws 162 

(2) Relations to Humanity— The Individual shares the Destiny of the Race. . 163 

(3) Relations to God— Lives and Progress for a Higher Development 166 

Woman— The Educator of Mankind— Develops the Child in all its Relations — 109 

2. Earliest Developments of the Child 170-179 

Physical Movements— Prompted by Necessities of its Being 170 

Exercises of the Limbs— Sense of Touch— The Hand 171 

Shaping and Producing— Constructions in Sand and Clay : 172 

Sense of Sound— Cradle Songs— Rythm— Awakening of Feeling 174 

Material Needs— Gardening — Its Pleasures 175 

Desire to know why, whence, and wherefore — Comparison 176 

Social Impulse— The Basis of Moral Cultivation 177 

Religious Instinct — Follows Social Development 177 

God through Nature— Natural Phenomena Symbolic 178 

8. Froebel'8 Theory of Education or Development 181-189 

Education is Emancipatioa— Setting free bound up Forces 181 

Natural Order, or Progress according to Law — Race 18J 

Pestalozzi's endeavor to discover and apply the principle 183 

Froebel claims to have completed the method 183 

Chief Aim of Education is Moral Culture 183 

AU Instruction and Developing Exercises should perfect the Soul 184 

Law of Opposites and their Reconciliation 187 

Theory requires Freedom, Assistance, and Unity 189 

4. Errors in Existing Education of Early Childhood 190 200 

Physical— Bad Nursing, and Insufficient Food and Exercise 1!I0 

Mora) — Improper Surroundings and Treatmeut. ... 191 

Intellectual— Want of Direction and over Stimulant 193 

Requisites for Healthy Growth in well directed Activity 104 

Educative Uses of Playthings and Play— Evolution of Ideal 196 

Necessary Force exists in Mother's Love if properly trained 200 

B. Froebel's Method op Dbvelopment 101-218 

Meaning of Method — Both General and Special 202 

Object of Thought— Perception, Observation, Comparison, Judgment 204 

Comparison or Reconciliation of Opposites 204 

Pestalozzi's Fundamental Law— A. B. C, Form, Number, Language 205 

Differences between Education and Instruction 206 

Feeling and Willing— Good and Beautiful— Self and Others 206 

Insufficiency of Pestalozzi's Doctrine of Form 207 

Law of Balance, universal and beneficial 211 

Mystic side of Froebel's Principles 212 

6. The Kindergarten 219 226 

The Child World as it appears to an outsider 219 

Movement Games with explanatory Songs 219 

Occupations— in playful work and workful play 220 

Ideal and useful Art— Cabinet of Collections and Products 221 

Choral melody— affectionate and reverential '. 22'J 

Kindergarten werk begins in the Mother's Lap 223 

Should be continued in all girl schools and education 223 



g FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL WORK. 

Freedom of Development— Suitable Condition... 5J23 

Work or Activity for Development » 223 

Unity or Progression— Continuity of Development 224 

Hindrances to the Realization of the Kindergarten 235 

T. The Mother Pla.t akd Nursery Sonos 227 

Book for Mothers the basis of Proebel's System 227 

Its Philosophy best felt by Children and Mothers 228 

First Development goes on in play, which must be assisted 229 

Examples given based on the instincts of infancy 230 

8. Earliest Development op the Limbs 231-232 

Popular Nursery Games originate in the Motherly Instinct 231 

Exercises of the Hand, Fingers, and Wrist 232 

9. Child's First Relation TO Nature 239 

Games should deal with Natural Phenomena 233 

The Weather Cock— The Sun-Bird— The Child and the Moon 234 

Farm Yard Gate— Little Fishes— Bird Song 337 

10. The Child's First Relations to Mankind 200 

Mother— Family Circle and Life— Neighborhood 240 

Froebel's Introduction to their Relationships 241 

Finger Games— Physical, Mental, and Moral Uses 242 

First Impressions in Critical Moments most lasting 243 

First Walk, Fall, Fright, Pain— Game of Bopeep— Confidence 244 

Cuckoo game — Conditions for Indulgence — Habits — . 245 

First step to moral development— High expels the low 247 

Sense of Taste— Germs of aesthetic Culture— Moral Freedom 249 

Handicrafts and other Industrie*- Movement Games ... 251 

Habitation— Instinct for— Constructive Tastes and Habits 252 

Value of Manual Labor— Respect for the Laborer 253 

Sense of hearing and vocal organs— Voices of Nature 254 

Drawing, ideal and productive— Froebel's Occupations 257 

Foundations laid for social development in family and lifa 259 

11. The Child's First Relations to God 261-278 

Belief in God, inborn, intuitive, and can be developed 261 

First step through the love and trust in its Mother 261 

Choral Melodies— Gestures, and words of reverence— Prayer 262 

Personal Activity and Experiences— Symbolic Interpretations of Nature 263 

Froebel's Mother Book— Child's own Story and History Book 269 

Inner conscious life not possible with children 275 

Pictorial Representations deepen Impressions 271 

Christ as a Divine Child— God manifest in Man 275 

Church services for Children— Analogies in Nature 277 

Early Education must be based on religion 273 

12. Summary View or Froebel's Principles 279-280 

Education begins and ends with Life 279' 

Follows natural laws, and must be guided by intelligence and love 279 

Mothers and Kindergartners must be trained 280 

Supplement to Child's Relations to God 281-288 

Child Life in Christ. By Rev. Stopford Brooke 281 

IV. Congress of Philosopliers at Frankfort, in 1869 289-336 

Problem of Popular Education in Pedagogical Section, 289 

Report op Prop. J. W. Fichte, Embodying Conclusions 291 

1. Education the Probl em of the Age 291 

2. Philosophical Systems in the Educational Problem 295 

Fundamental Principles of Herbart and Beneke examined 295 

8. Pschological Basis of Modern Pedagogy 305 

4. Axioms of All Christian Pedagogy 312 

6. Pestalozzianism the basis of National Systems 318 

6. Froebel's additions to Pestalozzi solve the Problem 322 

7. Education of Childhood according to Froebel 327 

8. Day Nurseries for Neglected Children 333 



FKOEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL WORK. 7 

V. International Congress of KclMcation at Brussels, in 1880 337-460 

Papers ON THK Value, and Furtheu Extbnsion or Froebel's Views 3S1 

1. Fischer — President op Froebbi, SociETr in Vienna .....839-868 

Grounds oq which Froebel's system is assailed, examined 389 

Kindergarten shodld prepare for school , . . . . 349 

Kindergartners should have a special training ,347 

8. GuiixiAUME— Member op Belgian Educational League 35.3-368 

Froebel's system extends beyond the Kindergarten age and culture 353 

Cardinal idea of his Education of Man— Force in Nature 355 

Extension of the Gifts and Occupations into the School period necessary 358 

Letters to Emma Bothman in 1852— Kindergarten and School 362 

Language — How Lina learns to write and read— Exciir!?ions 364 

Number— Form and Dimension— Material for Intermediate Class 365 

III. THE KINDERGARTEN AND CHILD CULTURE. 

I»rogressive Improvement of ]Vran.u.als and. Mletliods.. 369-450 

1. A-B-C Books and Primers 809-.378 

Persian— Chinese— Greek— Latin A-B-C 369 

Primer— Catholic and Protestant 373 

English Primer of Henry VIII— Horn Book illustrated 373 

2. A Guide pob the Child and Youth 375 

Rules for the Behavior 

Part One— Alphabet, Prayers, Graces and Instructions 375 

Symbolic Alphabet. In Adam's Fall, &c 376 

Rules for Behavior at Home, School and Church 378 

Modifications In New England Primer enlarged 379 

8. The New England Primer with Shorter Catechism 379-400 

Historical Data— Webster's Reprint in 1844 of Edition of 1777 379 

Illustrations— John Hancock— Adam's Fall— Mr. John Rogers at the Stake... 381 
Infant Songs and Prayers- Letters.large and small— Syllables, short and long.. 382 

Who was the first Man ?— Lessons for Youth— Commandments— Creed 386 

Mr. John Rogers' Advice to his Children 388 

Shorter Catechism of the Westminster Assembly of Divines 390 

Mr. John Cotton— Spiritual Milk for American Babes 396 

Dialogue between Christ, Youth, and the Devil 398 

4. The Petty Schoole. Bt C. H., 1659 401-413 

How to teach little children to say their letters, to spell, and to read 402 

How children who don't study Latin may be employed 408 

Hints for providing a Petty School, and its daily and weekly routine 410 

6. The English Schoolmaster. By Edward Coote 414 

Title Page— The Schoolmaster's Cautions 414 

6. Orbis Sensualium Pictus 415 

Janua Linguarum of W. Bateus in 1615 415 

Janua Reserata of Comenius in 1631 415 

English Edition by Charles Hoole in 1658 415 

Encyclopedia of things subject to Senses 415 

Woodward's Gate of Sciences, 1658 416 

7. The German Teacher's Path Finder— By Diesterweq 417-450 

Dr. Busse— Intuitional, or Object Teaching in 1873 417 

(1) Aims and Methods — Teaching by Inspection or Intuition 417 

Historical Development from Bacon to Diesterweg 421 

Different kinds of Intuitions for Object Teaching 430 

(2) The Method and its Rules 433 

Actual Inspection of real material— and doing 4.33 

Easy to difficult- Simple to complex— Concrete to abstract 434 

Instruction according to Material, and Individual Child 434 

Use of Poetry and Conversation 435 

(S) Best Guides and Aids for Observation, Thinking, and Language 435 



8 KINDERGARTEN AND CHILD CULTURE. 

Kindergarten "N^orli in. Different Countries 451-738 

L Madame Henrietta Breymann Schbadeb 451 

Proebelian Institute in Berlin 453 

n. Mabamb de Pobtugall— Geneva 473-480 

"Value and Extension of the Kindergarten Principle 473 

in. The Creche, and Child Cultuee in France 481^88 

Day Nurseries— Infant Asylums— Training Institute 481 

rV. Kindergarten and Child Culture in Belgium 489-518 

1. Public Kindergartens in Brussels 492 

2. Intuitional Teaching in Model School 497 

v. Recent Kindergarten Publications in England 513-528 

1. Hindrances and Encouragements in Kindergarten Wobk 513 

2. Use or Natural and Household Phenomena 523 

3. Relations or Kindergarten to Infant Schools 526 

VI. Kindergarten Work in United States 629-736 

A. Examples op Training Institutes and Kindergabtbns 535 

1. Boston Training Class and Kindergabten 535 

2. Mrs. Maria Boelte-Kraus.— Rbminiscbnces or Kindergarten Works.. .539 

New York Training Institute and Kindergarten 537 

3. Experience of New York Female College 557 

B. Papers in Elucidation op Feoebel's System 661-736 

1. Feoebel's Principles and Methods in the Nursery. Mis-i Peabody .561-514 

Helplessness of Infancy— Getting Possession of its Organization 5fil 

Froebel's Use of the Natural Instincts— Uses of the Ball 566 

2. The Mother Play and Nursery Songs. Miss Susan E. Blow 575-594 

Unity of Human Life— Germs of all Faculties 578 

3. Some Aspects of the Kindergarten. Miss Susan E. Blow 595-616 

Froebel's Dealing with Natural Phenomena 595 

Daily Talks— Doing and Expressing— Occupations 601 

Laws of Intuitional Teaching 607 

4. Fboebel's Principles in PirBLic School System. Miss Peabody 617-624 

Quality of Education to be considered— Special Training 617 

6. Kindergartens the First Grade in City System. W. T. Hatris 625-642 

Conditions Precedent— Ideal Kindergartens 625 

General and Special Disciplines- Transition from Home to School 629 

Relation to Trades— Moral Discipline— Education of Play 6.31 

Practical Conditions Necessary to Succees 639 

6. Kindergarten Methods IN Primary Schools. 3/rs. Xowise PoZtocA;.. .643-653 

Lecture to the Public School Teachers of Washington 643 

t. The Public and Charity Kindergarten. Miss Peabody 651-653 

Miss Quincy's Shaw in Boston— Miss Blow in St. Louis 651 

8. Influence op Kindergarten Training on Homes. Mrs. H. Mann.. .654-664 

Homes of the extreme Poor— New Element of Sweetness and Light 658 

9. Kindergarten Work in California 665-672 

Miss Marwedel— Young Women's Christian Association 665 

Silver Street Kindergarten — Kindergarten Workers 668 

10. fiiNDERGARTKN Training for Artist and Artisan. Miss Peabody 673-678 

A Primary Art-School- Play converted into Habits . . .- 673 

Sjrecial Training in the Kindergarten 676 

11. Clay Modeling for Home and Kindergarten. Edwin A. Spring 679-685 

12. Free Kindergarten and Woekingman's School. Felix Adler. . . . 686-690 

13. Use op Colors in Teaching Musical Notation. Z>. Batchelor 691-704 

14. Free Kindergarten in Church Work, R.Heber Newion 705-730 

15. Kindergarten for Neglected Children 731-736 

Barnard's Kindergarten Papers, Hartford, Ct., 736 pages, will be eent by mail on 

receipt of p.SO 



I. 

FREDERICH AUGUST FEOEBEL. 



FRCEBEL AND THE KINDERGARTEN SYSTEM. 



Froebel (Friedrich.Wilhelm August) was born April 21, 1782, at 
Oberweissbach, in the principality of Scliwarzburg-Rudolstadt. His 
mother died when he was so young that he never even remembered 
her ; and he was left to the care of an ignorant maid-of-all-work, 
who simply provided for his bodily wants. His father, who was the 
laborious pastor of several parishes, seems to have been solely occu- 
pied with his duties, and to have given no concern whatever to the 
development of the child's mind and character beyond that of strictly 
confining him within doors, lest he should come to harm by straying 
away. One of his principal amusements, he tells us, consisted in 
watching from the window some workmen who were repairing the 
church, and he remembered long afterward how he earnestly desired 
to lend a helping hand himself. The instinct of construction, for 
the exercise of which, in his system, he makes ample provision, was 
even then stirring within him. As years went on, though nothing 
was done for his education by others, he found opportunities for 
satisfying some of the longings of his soul, by wandering in the 
woods, gathering flowers, listening to the birds, or to the wind as it 
swayed the forest trees, watching the movements of all kinds of 
animals, and laying up in his mind the various impressions then 
produced, as a store for future years. 

Not until he was ten years of age did he receive the slightest reg- 
ular instruction. He was then sent to school, to an uncle who lived 
in the neighborhood. This man, a regular driller of the old, time- 
honored stamp, had not the slightest conception of the inner nature 
of his pupil, and seems to have taken no pains whatever to discover 
it. He pronounced the boy to be idle (which, from his point of 
view, was quite true) and lazy (which certainly was not true) — a 
boy, in short, that you could do nothing with. And, in fact, the 
teacher did nothing with his pupil, never once touched the chords 
of his inner being, or brought out the music they were fitted, under 
different handling, to produce. Froebel was indeed, at that time, a 
thoughtful, dreamy child, a very indifferent student of books, cor- 



12 



FRCEBEL AND THE KINDERGARTEN SYSTEM. 



dially hating the formal lessons with which he was crammed, and 
never so happy as when left alone with his great teacher in the woods. 

It was necessary for him to earn his bread, and we next find him 
a sort of apprentice to a woodsman in the great Thuringian forest. 
Here, as he afterward tells us, he lived some years in cordial inter- 
course with nature and mathematics, learning even then, though un- 
consciously, from the teaching he received, how to teach others. 
His daily occupation in the midst of trees led him to observe the 
laws of nature, and to recognize union and unity in apparently con- 
tradictory phenomena. 

In 1801 he went to the University of Jena, where he attended 
lectures on natural history, physics, and mathematics ; but, as he 
tells us, gained little from them. This result was obviously due to 
the same dreamy speculative tendency of- mind which characterized 
his earlier school life. Instead of studying hard, he speculated on 
unity and diversity, on the relation of the whole to the parts, of 
the parts to the whole, &c., continually striving after the unattain- 
able and neglecting the attainable. This desultory style of life was 
put an end to by the failure of means to stay at the University. 
For the next few years he tried various occupations, ever restlessly 
tossed to and fro by the demands of the outer life, and not less dis- 
tracted by the consciousness that his powers had not yet found what 
he calls their ' center of gravity.' At last, however, they found it. 

While engaged in an architect's ofiice at Frankfort, he formed an 
acquaintance with the Rector of the Model School, a man named 
Gruner. Gruner saw the capabilities of Froebel, and detected also 
his entire want of interest in the work that he was doing ; and one 
day suddenly said to him : ' Give up your architect's business ; you 
will do nothing at it. Be a teacher. We want one now in the 
school ; you shall have the place.' This was the turning point in 
Froebel's life. He accepted the engagement, began work at once, and 
tells us that the first time he found himself in the midst of a class of 
30 or 40 boys, he felt that he was in the element that he had missed 
so long — ' the fish was in the water.' He was inexpressibly happy. 
This ecstasy of feeling, we may easily imagine, soon subsided. In 
a calmer mood he severely questioned himself as to the means by 
which he was to satisfy the demands of his new position. 

About this time he met with some of Pestalozzi's writings, which 
so deeply impressed him that he determined to go to Yverdun and 
study Pestalozzism on the spot. He accomplished his purpose, and 
lived and worked for two years with Pestalozzi. His experience at 



FIWEBEL AND THE KINDERGARTEN SYSTEM. J 3 

Yverdun impressed hira ■with the conviction that the science of edu- 
cation had still to draw out from Pestalozzi's system those funda- 
mental principles which Pestalozzi himself did not comprehend. 
*And therefore,' says Schmidt, 'this genial disciple of Pestalozzi 
supplemented and completed his system by advancing from the 
point which Pestalozzi had reached through pressure- from without, 
to the innermost conception of man, and arriving at the thought 
of the true development and culture of mankind.' 

[To the articles published in Vol. I., 1859, p. 449; IV. 792; XIX. 611, we 
add a paper by Prof. Payne on Froebel's System of Infant Culture. We repro- 
duce a former article by Dr. Wimmer, of Dresden, in part, to show the estima- 
tion of the system in Germany twenty years ago.] 

Friedrich Froebel, and the Kindergarten. Froebel, who died in 
1852, was a Pestalozzian, and founder of the kindergarten, (children's garden.) 
Some gentlemen at Liebenstein, a watering place near Eisenach, called him " the 
old fool ;" but Diesterweg, on hearing the name, said that Socrates was such a 
fool, and Pestalozzi also. Froebel considered the kinderbewahr-anstalten, (schools 
for keeping and caring for abandoned children,) as insufficient, because merely / 
negative : he wished not only to keep, but to develop them, without cheeking the 
growth of the body, or separating the child from its mother, — as he would have 
the children in the garden but two or three hours daily. Children are born with 
the desire of acting. This was the first principle : hence, his garden was to be 
free, and planted with trees and shrubs, to enable the children to observe the or- 
ganic life of nature, and themselves to plant and work. Thus he would change 
the instinct of activity into a desire of occupation. The child will play ; hence 
the right kindergarten is a play ground or play school, though Froebel avoids the 
name school. The kindergarinerin, (the nurse or female gardener,) plays with 
the children. Froebel's chief object has been to invent plays for the purpose. 
His educational career commenced November 13th, 1816, in Greisheim, a little 
village near Stadt-Ilm, in Thuringia; but in 1817, when his Pestalozzian friend, 
Middendorf, joined him, (Froebel had been several years learning and teaching in 
Pestalozzi's school, at Tverdun,) the school was transferred to the beautiful village 
of Keilhau, near Rudolstadt, which may be considered as his chief starting- 
place, and is still, under Middendorf and Mrs. Froebel, a seminary of female 
teachers. Langenthal, another Pestalozzian, associated himself with them, and 
they commenced building a house. The number of pupils rose to twelve in 1818. 
Then the daughter of war-counselor Hoffinan of Berlin, from enthusiasm for 
Froebel's educational ideas, became his wife. She had a considerable dowry, 
which, together with the accession of Froebel's elder brother, increased the fi.mds 
and welfare of the school. In 1831 he was invited by the composer, Schnyder 
von Wartensee, to erect a similar garden on his estate, near the lake of Sempaeh, 
in the canton Luzern. It was done. Froebel changed his residence the next 
year, from Keilhau to Switzerland. In 1834 the government of Bern invited him 
to arrrange a training course for teachers in Burgdorf. In 1835 he became prin- 
cipal of the orphan asylum in Burgdorf, but in 1836 he and his wife wished to 
return to Germany. There he was active in Berlin, Keilhau, Blankenburg, 
Dresden, Liebenstein in Thuringia, Hamburg, (1849,) and Marienthal, near Lieb- 
enstein, where he lived until his decease in 1852, among the young ladies, whom 
he trained as nurses for the kindergarten, and the little children who attended 
his school. In August 7th, 1851, to the surprise of all, the kindergarten were 



14 GERMANr. 

suddenly prohibited by the Prussian government, (and afterward in Saxony,) 
" because they formed a part of Froebel's socialistic system, and trained the chil- 
dren to atheism." This was an error ; Charles Froebel, Friedrich's nephew, was 
the socialist, and the kindergarten had no connection with him. 

A meeting of educationalists was called by Diesterweg, at Liebenstein, when 
the following resolutions were adopted : 

1. Froebel intends a universal development of the talents given by God to 
the child. 

2. For this purpose he intends, 

a. To cultivate the body by a series of gymnastic exercises. 

b. To cultivate the senses, particularly the more spiritual ; the sense for form 
and color by instruction, and the rhythmical and musical sense by songs and 
melodies. 

c. To cultivate the desired want of action, as well as the mental faculties in 
general, by a series of exercises furnished by plays of his own invention. 

d. To stimulate the moral and religious sense by addresses and narratives, 
and especially by the child's communion with the educating nurse. 

e. To extinguish the children's bad habits, and to accustom them to child- 
like virtues by keeping them by themselves in social circles and merry plays. 

Soon after this the garden at Marienthal was visited by an officer of the Prus- 
sian government, school-counselor Bormann of Berlin, who declared its tendency 
rather anti-revolutionary than otherwise, and bestowed upon it much praise. In 
the fifth general assembly of German teachers, in Salzungen, May 16-19, 1853, 
the following resolutions were adopted by a majority : that Froebel's educational 
method is in true accordance with nature, as developing and promoting independ- 
ent action ; and that his kindergarten is an excellent preparation for the com- 
mon school. The Volksfreund of Hesse, however, says that it furthers revolu- 
tion, and that every one who agrees with it by word or deed, is himself revolu- 
tionary. 

There are in Germany a great many klein-kinder-bewahranstelten, (institu- 
tions for keeping little children,) e. g, in Bavaria, in 1852, 182, with 6,796 chil- 
dren, (2,740 gratis,) and an income of 51,772 florins. In Berlin there are 33, the 
first of which was founded in 1830 by private charity, to keep little children 
whose parents are in daytime absent from home, under a good inspection, to 
accustom them to order, cleanliness and morality, and to fit them for attendance at 
school. These charity schools are provided, as to the age of children, by the 
well-known " Krippen,''^ (creches,) founded in 1844 by M. Marheau in Paris, the 
author of" Lcs creches, ou moyen de diminuer la misere en augmentant la popula- 
tion," a little book that received a price of 3000 francs from the French Academy. 
Filling a gap between the lying-in-institutions and the kindergarten, they 
were rapidly adopted by governments and cities, for children from a fortnight to 
two years old ; and in 1852 Paris had already 18. The first in London dates 
from March, 1850 ; in Vienna, from 1S49, (in 1852 there were 8 ;) in Belgium, 
from 1846; in Dresden, from 1851, etc. Further information is given in the 
Bulletin des creches, published monthly in Paris. On the education of little 
children, Mr. Foclsing, at the head of a kindergarten in Darmstadt on Froebel's 
principles but in a somewhat different way, publishes at Darmstadt a monthly 
paper called " Home and the Infant School." The Sunday and weekly papers 
published formerly by Froebel in Liebenstein, might be still read with advantage. 



FROEBEL AND HIS EDUCATIONAL WORK. X5 

DATES CONNECTED WITH FROEBEL AND HIS EDUCATIONAL CIRCLE.* 

1770. June 24 Birthday of Christian Ludwig Froebel. 

1780. 8ept. 17. Birthday of Friedrich Froebel's wife, Henriette Wilhel- 

miue Hoffmeister. Christian's wife, Johanna Caroline Miigge, 

was born in August of the same year. 
1783. April 21. Birthday of Friedrich Froebel. ' 

1792. Froebel is given up to the care of Supt. Hoffman in Stadtilm. 
Heinrich Langethal was born in Erfust on the third of September. 

1793. Sept. 20. Wilhelm Middendoi-ff's birthday. 
1797. Fr. Froebel is under the instruction of a forester. 

1799. Froebel returns to his parents' house, and then goes to Jena as a 

student. 
1801. Fr. Froebel leaves Jena, and becomes soon after a farmer. 
Dec. 29. Albertine Middendorff, nee Froebel, was born. 
180S. Fr. Froebel's father dies. Froebel receives the position of actuary 
of the forest department. He goes to the forest court in the 
I vicinity of Bamberg. 

Johannes Arnold Barop was born in Dortmund Nov. 29. 

1803. Fr. Froebel goes to Bamberg and takes part in the land measure- 

ments ordered by the government. 

1804. Fr. Froebel fills successively two offices of agricultural secretary, 

first in Bayreuth then in Gross-Milchow. On the eleventh of 
July Emilie Froebel, afterwards wife of Barop, was born. 

1805. Supt. Hoffman dies. Froebel goes to Frankfort-on-the Main to 

become an architect. He becomes a teacher in the model school. 
In August he goes for two weeks to Pestalozzi at Yverdun. 

1807. Froebel becomes instructor in the family of the Lord of Holy- 

hausen near Frankfort. 

1808. Froebel goes again to Pestalozzi, in the company of his pupils. 

1809. Froebel gives the princess of Rudolstadt an account of Pestalozzi's 

exertions. 

1810. Froebel returns to Frankfort. 

1811. Study in Gottingen begins. 

1812. Departure to the University of Berlin. 
Enlists in the Volunteer Corps. 

1814. Froebel becomes assistant in the mineralogical museum in Beriin. 
1814. Jan. 5. Birthday of Elise Froebel, future wife of Dr. Siegfried 
Schaffner in Keilhau. 

1816. Nov. 13. Froebel opens his public Educational Institution in 

Griesheim. 

1817. Departure to Keilhau. Advent of Middendorff and Langethal. 

1818. Sept. 20. Froebel marries Henriette Wilhelmine Hoffmeister from 

Berlin. 

1819. Prospectus of German Educational Institution near Rudolstadt. 

1820. Christian Ludwig with family enters the educational circle. Froe- 

bel writes a pamphlet entitled " On our German People." 

1821. Publication of the following writings: (1) Fundamental positions, 

aim, and inner life of the public German Educational Institution 
in Keilhau; (2) Aphorisms. 

♦Translated from W. Lange's F. FroebeVs Gesammetie Padagogische Schriften, by Misa 
Lucy Wheelock, Kindergartner in Chauncey HaU, Boston, Mass. [ 
4 



16 FKOEBEL AND HIS EDUCATIONAL WOKK. 

1833. The following writings appear : (1) On German education generally, ' 
and the educational institution in Keilhau especially ; (2) Con- 
cerning the universal German educational institution in Keilhau. 

1833. The following publication appears: Continued reports of the insti- 
tution in Keilhau. 

1824 Publication of the pamphlet: Celebration of Christmas in Keilhau. 

1826. Langethal and Middendorff marry. " Education of Man " appears. 
Later a weekly publication, " The Family Educator" was estab- 
lished. 

1828. Barop joins the educational circle. 

1829. Project of an Educational Institution for the People, in Helba. 

1830. A true co-laborer, Wilhelm Carl, is drowned in the Saal. 

1831. Journey to Frankfort. Opening of the educational establishment 

in Wartensee, Switzerland. 

1833. Barop goes to Wartensee. Departure to Willisau. Froebel goes 
back for a short time to Keilhau. 

■1833. Froebel, accompanied by his wife, goes to Willisau. The govern- 
ment of Berne transfers to him the direction of an advanced 
course for young teachers at Burgdorf, Langethal goes to Wil- 
lisau; Barop returns to Keilhau. 

1835. Froebel and Langethal undertake the direction of an orphan-house 

in Burgdorf. Middendorff goes with Elise Froebel to Willisau. 
Froebel writes: "The year 1836 demands a renewal of life." 

1836. In March his wife's mother dies and Froebel goes with his wife to 

Berlin. 

1837. Opening of the Kindergarten in Blankenburg. 

1838. The Sunday paper appears with the title — " Seeds, Buds, Flowers, 

and Fruits out of Life," for the Education of United Families. 

1839. Froebel and Middendorff go to Dresden. Froebel's wife dies. 

1840. Celebration of the Guttenburg festival. Opening of the universal 

German Kindergarten, established in Actien. Later it is re- 
moved to Keilhau. From Keilhau Froebel and Middendorff 
undertook different journeys in order to work for the establish- 
ment of Kindergartens. 

,1848. One of the teachers' assemblies called by Froebel meets in Rtidol- 
stadt. In the autumn of this year Froebel goes again to Dresden. 

1847. Departure to Liebenstein. Activity in Hamburg. 

1850. Return from Hamburg to Liebenstein. Froebel starts a new 

weekly paper. Elise Froebel marries Dr. Schaffner. 

1851. Jan. 7. Christian Ludwig Froebel dies. In July of this year Froe- 

bel married for his second wife Louise Levin. The "Journal 
of Fr. Froebel's Efforts " appears. 
1853. Froebel is called to Gotha by the Teachers' Assembly, Theodore 
Hoffman presiding. 

1853. June 21. Froebel's death. The school started by Mm moves from 
Marienthal to Keilhau. 

1853. Middendorff speaks on Froebel's subjects to the Teachers' Conven- 
tion at Salzungen and wins the heartiest applause. 
Nov. 27. Middendorff's death, 

■1860. Aug. 18. Emilie Barop dies. 

1861 The " Education of the Present " is founded through the influence 
of the Baroness Marenholtz-Biilow. ' 

'1870. The General Educational Union formed in Dresdeii, 



A NEW LIFE OF FRIEDERICH FROEBEL 

Compiled from Original Documents in Dr. Wichard Lange's Collected Writings of Froebel. 



INTRODUCTOEY NOTE. 

The following reminiscences of Froebel, and aids to the better 
understanding of his life-work,by Dr. Wichard Lange, gathered from 
articles he wrote upon Froebel from time to time, are of inestima- 
ble value, for they show from the outside, as lie himself attempted 
to do in his autobiographical letter to the Duke of Meiningen from 
the inside, the growth of his great idea, as well as the estimation 
in which he was held not only by the world, who gradually saw 
in him the great man that he was, but that of his own inner circle, 
the members of which never lost their enthusiasm and devotion to 
him in spite of some human faults that one can easily see grew out 
of that temperament of genius which makes anything unbearable 
to the sensitive soul of such a man which even threatens to inter- 
fere Vv'ith the great purpose of his life. Our sympathy for him is 
quickened and intensified by the picture of his shady side, and we 
can understand the magic power he wielded over those whom he 
found ready to understand him and who were capable of helping 
him by such devotion of life as is seldom met with in this world. 

PREFACE TO COLLECTED EDITION OP FROEBEL'S WRITINGS. 

Friederich Froebel and William Middendorff were insepar- 
able in life. If Middendorff appeared, Froebel was not far off. 
Middendorff came before the German people in 1848 and 1861, and 
after his death that reputation which he acquired in his life greatly 
increased. He traveled as an apostle of the new idea in those 
districts and regions of Germany in which the efforts of his bosom 
friend were yet unknown, and by his philanthropic, versatile, radi- 
ant personality, and by his powerful because heart-winning and 
persuasive eloquence, he could not but excite enthusiasm. He was 
the Aaron who stood by the side of the heavy-tongued Moses as a 
needed expositor, and softened the heart of many a hardened 
Pharaoh. Here in Hamburg, up to 1840, he won unheard of 
success, and fastened general attention upon the cause of Froebel. 
Froebel found a smooth path made for him, but he still had to 
combat many difficulties, because people did not and could not find 

* Thoughts on the Kindergarten dedicated to the German Parliament in 1848. 

2 (17) 



18 FROEBEL AND HIS EDUCATIONAL WORK. 

what they had been led to expect; namely, versatility and elo- 
quence like Middendorff's. 

May the little messenger of 1861 have roused the desire and the 
impulse to draw full attention to the distinguished chief wherever 
the unskillful form makes the reading or the understanding of the 
idea difficult. I have endeavored to improve this form so far as 
such alteration is consistent with reverence for what is thus criti- 
cised. Originals must remain originals. I was obliged to give a 
new shape to the autobiography running through almost the whole, 
because its contents could only thus be deciphered from an almost 
unreadable manuscript. 

Since Froebel's appearance in Hamburg in the winter of 1849- 
1850, I have been occupied uninterruptedly, even if sometimes 
only periodically, with his cause. At the period mentioned I was 
almost every afternoon, and often in the night also, active at his 
side. He had made me at that time editor of his paper, which 
appeared weekly, and endeavored to appropriate me wholly to 
himself. After a close trial of myself I was obliged to confess 
that I was not made to work among little children or for the 
training of kindergartners, that my special mission was the 
education of boys, and therefore I felt obliged to remain faithful 
to the Real School to which I once belonged. "When I declared 
this to him, he exclaimed, deeply displeased, "If you do not come 
now, come ten years hence, but you must surely come! '" I hope 
that his manes will be appeased by my " coming " now. 

The first stimulus for editing Froebel's writings I received 
through the superintendent of the educational institute at Keilhau, 
the cradle of the Frobelian efforts, Johannes Arnold Barop. At 
my last visit he conversed daily with me of the efficiency of his 
aforetime friend, of which every place that we set foot upon gave 
testimony. I vv'as made accurately acquainted with the whole 
development of that activity, and received an incidental oversight 
of the printed and literary legacy of the Thuringian friend of 
children. Barop handed over to me everything that was at his 
command, and was not a little amused when he saw me at once 
fall upon the offered material in Keilhau, in consequence of the 
impetus he had given me, and convert my freedom, which was to 
be devoted to recreation, into intense work. When I returned to 
Hamburg, Froebel's widow delivered up to me all that was want- 
ing and which I was seeking. So against my intention I became 
the editor of Froebel's writings. 



FKOEBEL AND HIS EDUCATIONAL WORK. 19 

It has not "been easy to wind my way through his numerous 
scribblings, to separate the essential and the unessential, and to 
use only what is necessary for the full understanding of the idea 
and the correct estimate of the founder. Even a selected edition 
should not, in my opinion, go beyond bounds, for the price of the 
whole naturally rises with the dimensions, and in proportion the 
difficulty of its general dissemination. I trust the selection I offer 
will fully answer its purpose. 

Three chronological errors which I have found, I will here 
correct. Henrietta Wilheraine Hofmeister was born, not on the 
20th, but on the 17th of September, 1780. Froebel was not an 
assistant in the mineralogical museum at Berlin in the summer of 
1813, but in August, 1814. He did not die on the 21st of July, 
but on the 21st of June, 1852. 

In regard to my remarks on the letter to Krause, I will here 
confess to the votaries of Friederich Froebel that 'I do not con- 
sider it right that the shady side of this remarkable, indeed this 
great man, should be carefully covered up by his friends. I think 
we should honor the truth here as elsewhere, and that by such 
uprightness we injure neither the man, who could as little be an 
angel in human form as other men, nor his cause, which will stand, 
so far as it has emanated from God, the source of all truth. We 
are much more likely to obtain a favorable judgment from all 
thoughtful and quietly investigating men, who are not inclined or 
accustomed to throw away the true metal with the schlag, by such 
considerate uprightness. On this ground I shall never fear to 
speak freely of the human imperfections of a man who has done 
and brought into use so much good. 

I see in this man the future reformer of the education of little 
children in their homes. Only in the closest connection with his 
efforts will it be possible for the female sex to obtain that culture 
and those means of help of which this whole half of humanity is 
capable, in order to fulfil intelHgently their high mission. The 
recognition of this will stimulate me ultimately, on the ground of 
the practical works of Froebel which are now partially at hand in- 
these three volumes, to issue a " Book on the Care of Childhood," 
and with it to venture a comprehensive essay to make accessible to 
all the ideas and plans of the founder of kindergartens, so as at 
the same time to supplement those ideas and plans by whatever 
science and hfe have brought to me of insight and experience 
since Friederich Froebel's death. May fate not put any obstacle 
in the way of this purpose! 



20 FROEBEL AND HIS EDUCATIONAL WORK. 

I believe farther, that Dr. Karl Schmidt is right when he sees 
in the efforts of this original pedagogue of ours those principles 
which will again set in motion and bring to flood tide the peo- 
ple's education of the time. Froebel will excite the need for 
learning by learning; he will not alone develop receptivity by 
means of productivity, according to Pestalozzi, but will develop 
men directly through productivity. It is not difficult to point out 
that a reformation in instruction can be easily attained on the 
ground of its demands, and that one may think of that reforma- 
tion without meaning a total revolution, of which now and then 
there is foolish talk. Its radical demand, that we must let univer- 
sal life and especially the life of nature influence the child, will 
very rarely be able to adapt itself to the reality of things. The 
theory which considers the universe as an organic whole and man 
as a member of the whole in all, and which will allow the laws of 
education to be dictated chiefly by the laws of life, governed 
Froebel through and through, governs the present time, and will 
make its influence felt more and more in the educational field, and 
if we should find ten times another '' conformity to law " of all 
life as the parson's son of Oberweisback saw it. 

In short, I look upon Friederich Froebel as a truly great man. 
5e who has pursued a single thought for a whole lifetime and 
served that thought with the utmost self-devotion and self-denial, 
who like him is able to set aside everything else for this thought 
and allow himself if necessary to be stoned or hung on the cross 
in its service, who knew no flinching and wavering in its presence^ 
indeed even scarcely any weariness, and set aside everything the 
world calls happiness, which he found only in the realization of 
this thought (turning this thought into act), he is a great man, 
and would have hunted himself down in pursuit of an error. 

And because Froebel was a great man, he must for this reason 
not be forgotten, and deserves the attention of a nation to which 
he clung with infinite love, for whose outer and inner freedom he 
fought literally on the battlefield, and which perhaps is the only 
one in the world that would let so ideal-minded a man as Friede- 
rich Froebel go forth from its bosom. 

Eamhurg, April 21, 1862. 

Dr. "Wichard Lange. 

Note. — ^We hope yet to see Dr. Lange's ^'BooJc on the Care of 
Childhood."— Tb. 



FEOEBEL AND HIS EDUCATIONAL WORK. 21 



AUTODIOGRAPHT IN LETTER TO THE DUKE OF MEININGEN.* 

Early Childhood — Loss of Mother. 

I WAS born in the Tliuringian forest in Oberweissbacli, a village of Schwarz- 
burg, April 21, 1782. My father, who died in 1802, was then priest, or 
pastor, there. I was early initiated into the painful struggle of life, and a 
deficient, unnatural education exerted its influence upon me. Soon after my 
birth, my mother became ill, and, after nursing me nine months, died. The 
whole outward direction and growth of my life was changed by this painful 
loss. I consider this event to have affected, more or less, the phenomena of 
my external life. My father had sole charge of a parish, scattered in six or 
seven groups, numbering probably five thousand people ; which, even to so ac- 
tive a man as he was — who, in his conscientiousness, never forgot his parish — 
was very arduous work, especially with the very frequent religious services 
then customary. It happened, also, that associate charge of a large new church 
was given him, so that he was more and more drawn away from his home and 
children. 

I was much left to the servant, who understood how to take advantage of my 
father's pre-occupation, and was consigned by her (certainly for my good) to 
my brothers and sisters, somewhat older than myself. From this and one cir- 
cumstance of my later life, my indelible love for the family,' and especially for 
my brothers and sisters, may have taken its rise, and which, up to the present 
moment, has had a strong hold on my heart. 

Although my father was a stirring, active man, seldom surpassed in his re- 
lations as country pastor in education, learning and experience, yet I re- 
mained a stranger to him through his entire life, owing to these separations 
caused by early circumstances. I had really no more a father than a mother. 
Under these conditions, I grew to my fourth year, when I received a second 
mother through my father's second marriage. My spirit must have felt then 
deeply the need of motherly and parental love, for in that year should have 
come the first period of consciousness. I remember that to my new mo'ther 
I brought richly the emotions of a simple, true child's love. They were en- 
couraged, developed and strengthened because they were good-naturedly re- 
ceived and responded to. Yet I did not long keep this joy — this good fortune. 
Soon the mother rejoiced in a son of her own, and now she not only withdrew 
her love from me for this one, but more than indifference met me — perfect es- 
trangement, which found expression in accent and speech. 

I am obliged to make this circumstance especially prominent because I rec- 
ognize herein the first cause of my early introspection, my desire for self- 
knowledge and my youthful separation from other human ties. Soon after 
the birth of her son, my second mother gave up the trustful and soul-uniting 
" thou," and began to address me in the third person, in a distant manner. 
As the word Er separates everything, so a great gulf was placed between my 
mother and me. I felt myself already, in my dawning boyhood, quite isolated, 
and my soul was filled with grief. 

Dishonorable people wished to use this feeling and state of mind to the in. 
jury of my mother ; but I indignantly turned away from them and avoided 



* Translated by Miss Lucr Wheelock, of the Chauncey Hall Kindergarten, Bos- 
ton, Mass. 



22 LETTER TO DUIvE OF MEININGEN. 

them when I could. Under such circumstances, I early became conscious of 
my purely inner life^ and the foundation was laid for that becoming self- 
respect and moral pride which has accompanied me through life. Temptations 
returned from time to time, and took a still more threatening aspect. Dishon- 
orable things were not only demanded of me, but directly attributed to me, 
and this in a way wliich left no doubt of the impropriety of the thing desired 
and the falsehood of the accusations. 

Local Influences — Family Life. 

So I was led on powerfully in my early boyhood to the consideration of life 
and its inner development in opposition to its external appearances. My inner 
and outer life, at this time, even in the midst of my plays and activities, were 
the principal object of my thoughts and reflections. The location of my 
parents' house had also an essential influence in the development and formation 
of my inner being. This structure was closely surrounded by other buildings, 
walls, hedges and fences, and Avas further inclosed by a court-yard and ])y 
grass and vegetable gardens, entrance on which was severely punished. The 
dwelling had no other outlook than right and left on houses, in front on a large 
church, and behind on the grassy base of a high mountain. I was thus de- 
prived of a distant view ; only, above me I saw the clear sky of the mountain 
region, and felt around me the pure fresli air. The impression which this 
clear sky, this pure air, made on me has continuously remained present with 
me. My observation was truly directed on what was near me in nature ; the 
plant and flower world became, so far as I could see and touch it, an object of 
my contemplation and thought. I early helped my father in his favorite oc- 
cupation of gardening, and received in this way many lasting impressions ; 
yet tlie anticipation of the true life of nature first came to me later — to which 
I shall come in the course of my story. 

The family life, also, at this time gave me much opportunity for self-occupa- 
tion and reflection. There was much going on in our house ; both parents 
displayed great activity, loved order, and sought in all imaginable ways to 
beautify their surroundings. I had to help their activity according to my 
strength, and soon observed that I gained by that means in power and judg- 
ment. Through this increase of strength and reason, my self-organized plays 
and occupations gained greater value. 

From the free life in nature, from the external family life, I must now turn 
back to the internal one that I then led. 

My father was a theologian of the old school, who considered knowledge and 
learning of less value than faith, yet sought to keep pace, as far as possible, 
with the times. For this purpose he took the best publications of the time, 
and carefully considered what was offered to him in them. This contributed 
not a little to the genuine Christian life that reigned in our family. All the 
members of it were assembled morning and evening, even on Sundays ; al- 
though on that day divine service brought us together for a common religious 
observance. Zollikofer, Hermes, Marezoll, Sturm and others led us in these 
excellent hours of thought and communion with our inner selves, and tended 
to the inspiration, unfolding and elevation of our spiritual life. Thus, my life 
was early influenced by nature, by work, and by religious perceptions ; or, as 
I prefer to say, the natural and primitive tendencies of every human being 
were nurtured in tlie germ. 

In order to develop later my view of the being of man, and for the sake of 



LETTER TO DUKE OF MEININGEN. 23 

I 

tny professional and individual efforts, I must mention that here, with feelings 
deeply stirred, I resolved to be truly noble and good. 

As I hear from others, this firm inner resolution often contrasted with my 
outer life. I was full of youthful spirits and the joy of life, and did not al- 
ways know how to be moderate in my activity, and through carelessness got 
into critical situations of all kinds, and in my thoughtlessness destroyed every- 
tliiug around me that I wished to investigate and become acquainted with. 

Siuce my father, tlirough his many duties, was prevented from instructing 
me himself, and especially because he had lost the desire to do it, from my 
causing him so much trouble in studies which were difficult to me, I was 
obliged to attend the public village school. The relation of my father to the 
village school-teachers, to the director of music, and the teachers of the girls' 
school— also, the hopes that he cherished from the instruction of both — deter- 
mined him to send me to the last-named. This choice, on account of the neat- 
ness, quiet, method and order which reigned there, had an important influence 
on my iuuer development. In confirmation of this, I will speak of my entrance 
into the school. 

Fiist Entrance into Scliool. 

As in that time church and school stood in interchangeable relations, so it 
was the case with us. The school-children had appointed places in the church ; 
they were not only obliged to attend church, but every child, as a proof of his 
attention to the preacliing, had, on Monday (on which day an examination 
was held for this purpose), to repeat to the teacher some one of the passages 
which the preacher had used in his discourse as proof texts. Tlie one most 
suitable for the childish mind was then selected to be committed to memory 
by the little ones. One of the larger school-children, at an appointed time, had 
to repeat the Bible verse to the smaller ones, sentence by sentence, through 
the whole week. The little ones, all standing, had to repeat the same, sentence 
by sentence, until the passage was perfectly comprehended by every child. 

I was brought to school on a Monday. The appointed passage for the week 
was the well-known " Seek first the kingdom of God." I heard these words 
repeated every day in a quiet, earnest, somewhat sing-song childish tone, now 
by one, now by the whole. The verse made an impression on me like nothing 
before or since. Indeed, this impression was so lively and deep, that to-day 
every word lives freshly in my memory with the peculiar accent with which 
it was spoken ; and yet since that time nearly forty years have elapsed. Per- 
haps the simple child's soul felt in these words the source and salvation of his 
life. Indeed, that conviction became to the struggling, striving man a source 
of inexhaustible courage, of always unimpaired joy and willingness in self- 
consecration. Enough to say, my entrance into this school was for me the 
birth to a higher spiritual life. 

Keij to the Inner Life. 

I pause here in my recollections to ask myself whether I shall dwell longer 
upon this first period of my life ; yet this is the time in which the germs of my 
life unfolded — in which the heart crisis occurred — the first awakening of my 
inner life. Should the delineation of this earliest period be successful, the 
comprehension of my mature life and struggles wiU be easy. Therefore, I 
prefer to dwell upon it a relatively long' time, and so much the more because 
I can then pass more quickly over the later periods of life. It seems to me as 
if it were with this account and view of my life exactly as with my educational 



24 LETTER TO DUKE OF MEINIXGEN. 

and teaching method ; what is set aside as the most common and insignificail 
appears to me often tlie most important, and it always seemed to me a mis- 
take to leave a gap in what is original and fundamental. Yet I know well 
that by such a search into the hidden springs of action one may easily weary 
those who cannot yet see the whole picture clearly or comprehend the whole 
aim of the representation. 

Contrary to the existing regulation, I was placed, by the position of my 
father as village minister, in the girl's school. Hence I received no place near 
pupils of my own age, but next the teacher, and was so brought near the 
largest pupils that I shared, when I could, their instruction, especially in two 
studies. At one time I read with them, and then I had to learn, instead of 
the above-mentioned Bible quotations, the sacred songs which were sung on 
Sundays in the church. There are two songs, especially, which shone forth 
like two clear stars in the dark and awful morning twilight : " Soar above, my 
heart and soal; " " It costeth much to be a Christ." These Avere songs of life 
to me. I found my little existence pictured therein, and the purport of them 
so penetrated my being that in later life I have often strengthened and en- 
couraged mysejf by wliat then enriched my soul. 

The domestic life of my father accorded perfectly with the school arrange- 
ment mentioned above. Although two divine services were held on Sunday, 
yet seldom was I allowed to miss one of these solemn occasions. I followed 
my father's discourse with great attention, partly because I believed I should 
find therein many references to his own ministerial, professional, and spiritual 
activity. I do not now find it immaterial that at divine service I sat apart 
from the congregation, in the vestry, because I was less distracted there. 

I have mentioned before that my father belonged to the old orthodox school 
of theology; therefore the well-known, strong, highly-colored language pre- 
dominated as well in sermon as in song, a language which I, in more ways 
than one, might denominate a stone language, because it requires a strong ex- 
planatory power to free the inner life therein contained from the outer covering. 
Yet, later, the developed power appeared too weak to influence the active life, 
the stirring, responsive strength of a simple, introspective young soul, one just 
unfolding itself — a mind asking everywhere for cause and connection, very 
often after long experiment, investigation and consideration. 
Joy and Slrength in Self- Activity. 

Whenever the thing ardently sought was found, I experienced great joy. 
Among the circumstances under which I grew up, especially in my first child- 
hood, external charms influenced me much. They were early an object of at- 
tentive observation to me. The result of this investigating and inquiring 
observation coming in my earliest boyhood, was very clear and marked, al- 
though directed not so much to words as to things. I realized that the passing 
influence of external charms gives nothing really lasting and satisfying to 
man, and that on this account they are not to be valued above conduct. 

This result affected and determined my whole life, as this first consideration 
and comparison of the inner and outer world, and their interchangeability, is 
the key-note of my entire life since. Uninterrupted self-observation, self- 
reflection and self-education is the key to my life, early shown and continued 
to the later periods of it. To arouse, animate, awaken and strengthen man's 
joy in and power for working continually on his own education had been and 
remained the fundamental necessity of my educational work. All my efforts 



LETTER TO DUKE OF MEININGEN. . 25 

and methods, as a teacher, are directed towards the awakening and fostering 
of this joy and strength, of this personality by which the human being first 
truly sets himself to work as a man. 

The hard, unpleasant expressions of an orthodox theology I soon trans- 
formed in my imagination, to which, perhaps, two circumstances especially 
contributed. I heard the same expressions an indefinite number of times ; for 
I lived also under the precepts of the confirmation instruction which my father 
imparted to his household. I heard the terms in the most different connec- 
tions, whence fiuallj' the conception sprang up of itself in my soul. Secondly, 
I was frequently the silent witness of my father's earnest and rigid pastoral 
care ; of the frequent interviews between him and the many people who vis- 
ited the parsonage, to obtain counsel and instruction. I was thus again led 
from the outer to the inner world. Life, with its most secret impulses, and 
the words and opinion of my father tliereupon, passed before my eyes, and I 
realized in this way things and words, deeds and professions, in their most 
vital connection. I saw the fragmentary and burdened, torn and dismembered 
life of man as it appeared in this collection of five thousand people to the ob- 
servant eye of their earnest and resolute pastor. 

Discordant Life — Harmony of Nature. 

Matrimonial and family relations were often the subject of his admonitory 
and corrective conversation and remonstrances. The way in which my father 
spoke of this made me consider the subject as one of the most pressing and 
difficult for man, and, in my youth and innocence, I felt deep grief and pain 
that man alone among created things should pay the penalty of such a sexual 
difference that made it hard for him to do right. 

I could find nothing to reconcile that within and without me which was ab- 
solutely adapted to my mind, heart and inner need. And, indeed, how could 
this be possible at my age, and in my position ? 

Just then my oldest brother, who Jived awa}'' from home (like all my older 
brothers and sisters), came back for a time, and when I told him my delight in 
the purple threads of the hazel buds, he made me notice a similar sexual dif- 
ference among flowers. Now my mind was satisfied ; I learned that what had 
troubled me was a wide-spread arrangement throughout nature to which even 
the quiet, beautiful growths of flowers were subject. Henceforth, human and 
natural life, soul and flower existence, were inseparable in my eyes, and my 
hazel blossoms I see still, like angels that opened to me the great temple of 
nature. I received what I needed : in place of the church, a natural temple ; 
in place of the Christian religion, the life of nature ; in place of harmful, 
hating human life, a quiet, speechless plant life. Henceforth it seemed as if I 
had the clew of Ariadne, which would lead me through all the wrong and de- 
vious ways of life — and a life of more than thirty years with nature, often, it is 
true, falling back and clouded for great intervals: — has taught me to know 
this, especially the plant and tree world, as a mirror ; I might say, an emblem 
of man's life in its highest spiritual relations ; so that I look upon it as one of 
the greatest and deepest conceptions of human life and spirit when in holy 
scripture the comparison of good and evil is drawn from a tree. Nature, as a 
whole — even the realms of crystals and stones — teaches us to discriminate good 
from evil ; but, for me, not so powerfully, quietly, clearly and openly as the 
plant and flower kingdom. 

I said my hazel blossoma furnished me Ariadne's thread. Much was thus 



26 LETTER TO DUKE OF MEININGEN. 

solved to me again and again in an entirely satisfactory way ; for example, the 
first life experience of the first beings in Eden, and much that is connected 
■with them. 

Three crises of my inner life, which happened before my tenth year, I must 
bring out here before I turn to my outer hfe of this period. As folly, miscon- 
ception and ignorance, even in the earliest epoch of the world, are presumed to 
have determined its ruin, so it happened in the time of which I now speak. My 
inner life was then very quiet. I said to myself, very determinedly and clearly, 
the human race will not leave the earth until it has reached so much perfection 
in this dwelling-place as can be reached on earth. Tlie earth — nature, in the 
narrow sense — will not pass away until men have attained a perfect insight 
into the composition of the same. Tliis thought often returned in different 
aspects to me ; to it I often owed rest, firmness, perseverance and courage. 
Reconcilement of Differences. 

Towards the end of this period, my oldest brother, of whom I have already 
spoken, was in the university. He was studying theology. The critical phi- 
losophy of that time began to illumine the doctrines of the church. It could 
not but happen that father and son were often of different opinions. I remem- 
ber that once they discussed, with a lively exchange of words, some religious 
or church opinion. My father was excited, and on no account would give up. 
My brother, although mild by nature, was growing red, and could not resign 
what he held as true. I was here also, as so often, an unobserved listener, and 
I still see my father and brother as they stood opposed in their war of opinion. 
It seemed to me almost as if I comprehended something of the subject of their 
strife, and that I must decide that my brother was in the right ; and yet there 
seemed to be something in my father's view that was not entirely incompatible 
with a mutual understanding. It came to my mind that in every foolish idea 
there is a true side to be found, which often misleads to a convulsive, firm hold 
of the wrong. This view came out in my life more and more, and later, when 
two men in my presence contended for the truth, I learned to know it from 
both. On this account, I never liked to take sides, and this was my salvation. 

Another experience of my youth which had a definite influence upon my 
inner life M'as the following : There are constantlj^ recurring, positive demands 
in our church religion to put on Clirist, to show Christ in the life, to follow 
Jesus, and so on. These demands were often presented to me through my 
father's zeal in teaching and his earnest life. 

The child knows no fear from the claims which are adapted to the childish 
spirit. As he receives to himself and recognizes the claim as a whole, so he 
wishes the fulfillment of the same to be entire and perfect. By the so-frequent 
recurrence of this demand came to me in its highest importance, also, the great 
difficulty in the way of its fulfillment ; it even appeared to me that the latter 
was quite impossible. The contradiction which I believed I discovered in this 
way was oppressive to me in a high degree. Finally, the blessed thought 
came to me : human nature, in itself, does not make it impossible for man to 
live and represent again the life of Jesus in its purity ; man can attain to the 
purity of the life of Jesus if he only finds the right way to it. This thought, 
by which as often as I think of it I am transplanted to that place and condition 
of my boyhood, was by chance the last of that epoch of life, and so it may 
close the account of my inner development at that point. In looking back 
upon it, I see that it was the heavenly moment of my life. 



LETTER TO DUKE OF 'lEININGEN. 27 

Disturbed Outer Life. 

From the delineation of my inner boy life one might possibly infer a happy, 
satisfied outer life. Such a conclusion would not be correct. It appears to 
have been my destination to set forth and unravel the sharpest and hardest 
contrasts and contradictions. My external life was, therefore, of an entirely 
opposite character. I grew up without a mother ; my physical condition was 
neglected, and through this neglect I had acquired many bad habits. I liked 
to be occupied ; but often erred, in my awkwardness, in choosing material, time 
and place. So I often drew on myself the highest dissatisfaction of my parents. 
From my aroused feelings, I was deeply sensible of this, and for a longer time 
than it lasted with them, and so much the more because I found myself at best 
at fault in the scheme, though not in the motive. In my mind, I saw always 
one side, viewed from which my doing the thing was not entirely wrong, still 
less deserving of punishment. In my opinion, designs were attributed to my 
actions which did not lie in them. This consciousness first made me what I 
had the credit of being — namely, a bad boy. Finally, from fear of a severe 
punishment, I concealed the most innocent transactions, or shielded myself by 
false assertions, when I was asked. Enough, I early passed as bad; and my 
father, who did not always have time for investigation, received the thing as 
it was represented to him. 

; In play with my half brothers and sisters, according to the mother's con- 
struction I was always the occasion of all improprieties that happened. As 
the sympathy of my parents separated itself from me, my life separated more 
and more from them, and I was deprived of contact and union with men. 

In this mournful condition, I ardently wished a change. I counted my 
older brothers and sisters happy who were all out of the house. At this 
troublous time, my oldest brother, already mentioned many times, returned 
home. He appeared to me as an angel of life ; for he recognized in and under 
my mistakes the human side of my being, and took me often under his pro- 
tection, with my misdemeanors. After a short time, he departed again, it is 
true ; but my inner being was bound in the closest way with his, and, after his 
death, this love was the turning-point of my life. 

The happiness of being able to leave the paternal roof finally fell to my lot, 
and it was of the highest necessity ; for otherwise the violent contradictions of 
my inner and outer life would necessarily have confirmed the bad reputation 
that had now attached itself to me. 

Life Away from Home. 

When I was ten and three-quarter years old, a new life began, quite differ- 
ent from the earlier one. I permit myself here to make a comparison of this 
my early life with my present, to show how the former is to me the source of 
knowledge, and experience for the latter. 

As I, when a child and boy, strove to educate myself properly, according to 
the laws placed by God himself in my nature, although yet unknown, so I 
strive now in a similar way, according to similar laws, and by a similar pro- 
cess, to educate men — the children of my fatherland. What I attained by my 
exertions as a boy, with a certain degree of unconsciousness, man often gains 
with a certain degree of ignorance, not less truly, but generally under more 
favorable circumstances than those which I experienced in my boyhood. So 
life is to me, in its great and small phenomena, in those of mankind and the 
human race, as well as in those of the individual (although he himself arbi- 



28 LETTER TO DUKE OF MEININGEN. 

trarily distorts his life) ; so the present, past and future is to me an unbroken, 
continuous, great whole, in which one thing explains, justifies, conditions and 
demands another. 

My childhood taught me that when mistrust exists where confidence should 
be, where separation takes the place of unity, when doubt is active where be- 
lief in man should operate, sorrowful fruits must appear, and a burdensome, 
oppressed life is the consequence. 

I now go back to the recital of the history of the development of my inner 
and outer life. 

A new life now began for me, different from the former one. An uncle on 
my mother's side — Superintendent Hoffman, of Stadt-Ilm — visited us this year. 
He was a gentle, benevolent man. His appearance among us made a benefi- 
cent impression on me. As an experienced man, he may have perceived the 
unhappiuess of my situation ; for, soon after his departure, he asked my father, 
by letter, to give me into his charge. Consent was easily and gladly given. 
ToM'ards the end of the year 1792 I went to him. His wife and child had died 
early. Only his aged mother-in-law lived with him. As austerity reigned in 
my father's house, so here kindness and benevolence. I saw there, in respect 
to myself, distrust; here, confidence; there, I felt constraint; here, freedom. 
While there, I had been hardly at all among boys of my own age ; here, I 
found certainly as many as forty fellow-pupils — for I entered now the higher 
class in the town school. This market-town lies in a quite broad valley, by a 
clear little stream. My uncle had a garden, near the house, which I could visit, 
and I was allowed to roam through the whole region, if I only appeared at 
home again punctually at the right time ; which was an irremissible law. I 
dranlc here fresli courage in long draughts; for the whole country was to me a 

Physical Groicth and Play. 
place of action, as earlier our farm premises had been. I gained freedom of 
mind and bodily strength. The eyes of our higher spiritual teacher never dis- 
turbed our plays, which went on in an appointed jjlace before him, and were 
always merrily conducted. The frequent re-action after jjlay was often griev- 
ous to me, which took place because my bodily strength and activity M'ere not 
developed according to my age, and my bold daring could ilever supply the 
quiet, vigorous strength, and the knowledge of its limit, which mj^ companions 
enjoyed. These happy ones had grown up in the constant use of their youthful 
and boyish strength. I felt myself fortunate beyond measure when at last I 
was received as an equal companion in the play of my school-fellows. But 
what afterwards skill, purpose and life remedied in this respect, I then felt 
always a physical weakness at variance with boyish vigor. 

That of which my former education had robbed me being supplied, my life 
became vigorous, outwardly unconstrained — and, as I am told, I have made 
this useful to others in a high degree. 

The world lay open to me as far as I could take it in. It may be that my 
life at that time was as free and unconstrained as my former life had been 
confined and bounded ; at least my youthful comrades of that time have com- 
municated to me several incidents which make me believe that my gayety bor- 
dered on wildness and carelessness — so far did I, even as a boy, intend the 
outward acts of my life to be of a more simple kind than those of my contem- 
poraries. My heretofore quiet life in nature was now a more free and living 
one. At the same time, my uncle's house was a peaceful, generally a quiet 



LETTER TO DUKE OF MEININGEN. 29 

one, so that I lived and grew in this direction also, and now consequently a true 
balance came into my life. Thus in two places of culture I was quite at home, 
as formerly — although more frequently distraction of mind took possession of 
me — I mean, the church and school. In the latter, the hour of religious in- 
struction quite captivated me. Like my uncle's life and character — gentle, 
kind, aud breathing love — so were his pulpit utterances. I followed them en- 
tirely, and gave an account of them at the Monday repetition. 
Religious and School Instruction. 

But the religious instruction of our teacher was most agreeable to me. In 
him and through him I received greater light and higher confirmation for 
everything that I had explained to myself. I spoke later, when a young man, 
of tlie excellence of tliis instruction, to my uncle, aud he expressed the opinion 
that it miglit be really good, but too philosophical, and for this degree of ad- 
vancement difficult to understand. " For you," he added, " it might answer, 
because you had already received excellent instruction from your father." 

This teaching sufficiently illuminated, animated, warmed, even inflamed me, 
to whom it was the thing desired, so that I was often deeply affected, especially 
by the representation of the life-work and character of Jesus. I was tlien dis- 
solved in tears and a most decided longing filled my breast to be able to lead 
at once a similar life. When I now hear reports of the youtliful overflow of 
my spirits at that time, I must believe that it may easily have led the super- 
ficial observer to the wrong opinion that all religious admonitions and teach- 
ings passed over me without making an impression. How incorrectly would 
such an observer have judged the true condition of my inner life ! 

Reading, writing, arithmetic, and religious instruction were well-conducted in 
the school of Stadt-Ilm. Latin was miserably taught and yet more spatiugly 
learned. 

Here, as in many similar schools, the element of generalization was entirely 
lacking. The time I spent on Latin was not lost, in so far as it taught me that 
a course of instruction so carried on can brine: forth no fruit in tlie scholars. 

Mathematics lay very near my nature. When I received private instruction 
in this braucli also, my advance steps were so marked that tliey bordered on 
the by no means small height of knowledge and ability of my teacher. 

How astonished I was when in my twenty-third year I went to Yverdun for 
the first time and could not solve the problems which were there given to the 
pupils ! This was one of the experiences which quickly captivated me with 
Pestalozzi's manner of teaching, and decided me to begin mathematics anew 
according to his method. Bi\t of that later. 

In Geography we recited everything parrot-like, used many words and knew 
nothing, for there was lacking in this instruction, also, the slightest connection 
with life and any intuition, although we could name properly our colored mar- 
ket towns and little boroughs. I received private instruction in Geography also. 
My teacher wislied to go on with me in this branch. He gave me England to 
study. I could not place this land in relation with the villages and country in 
which I lived, and so I received little from tliis instruction likewise. 

Special instruction in German was not thought of ; yet we received teaching 
in writing and spelling. I do not know with what orthography was connected. 
I believe with nothing exactly ; it floated in the air. 

I had instruction, also, in singing and playing the piano ; but without result. 
I mention aU this merely to connect it with something later. 



30 LETTER TO DUKE OF MEININGEN. 

My life during the whole time of my abode at my uncle's had three direc- 
tions ; the religious, the unfolding and establishing of that which was expressed 
in my boyish play, and the quietly active ideas gained in my uncle's peaceful 
home. To this life I devoted myself fervently, without thinking what contrasts 
my outer life might show. 

My life passed, as that of my school-fellows, without a visible or perceptible 
control over me, quite unrestrained, ana yet I do not remember that a base act 
was ever perpetrated by any of us. | 

Influence of Manner on Childi-en. 
Something presses upon my thoughts now, which, as a teacher, I cannot 
leave unnoticed. We liad instruction from two teachers ; one was pedantically 
severe ; the other, tlie special teacher of our class, was humane and easy. The 
former never effected anything with the class; the latter, what he wished ; and 
if it had been laid upon him, or he had known his strength and power, he 
would have been able to accomplish something great. 

In the little city tliere were two clergymen, both directors of the school. My 
uncle, the first clergyman, was mild, gentle, and full of feeling, effective in his 
life as in his profession and pulpit. The second clergyman was rigid, even 
hard ; he quarreled and found fault disproportionately much. The former 
guided us by a look. Certainly few would have been rude enough to deny 
any word of his entrance to their hearts. 

The long admonitions of the other, as a rule, passed over us without making 
any impression. j\Iy uncle was, like my father, a true pastor of his flock ; but a 
gentle, human friendliness guided him. The couviction of the truth of his 
utterances guided my fatlier; he was earnest and severe. Both passed away 
more than twenty years since ; but how different the two congregations appear ! 
In one they are reckless, now that rigid control is shaken off, and if I hear cor- 
rectly, much unbridled license reigns ; in the other, the little city elevates itself 
to always greater prosperity, and everything thrives from an inner culture as 
well as from a true citizen-like industry. I mention these things because the 
consequences laid liold on me as a life experience. 

In this way I lived until my confirmation, a few weeks excepted, which I 
passed with my parents during the long school vacations Here also, every- 
thing appeared milder, and the tlirifty, economical activity whicli went on there, 
into which I was led anew during my temporary stay, exercised a very benefi- 
cent influence over me. 

At that time I sought first in the library of my father the engravings, espe- 
cially those which represented incidents in tlie universal history of the world. 
One plate on which was contained the representation of our alphabet together 
witli many others, made a very surprising impression on me. 

By it I was placed in a condition to understand the dependence and the deri- 
vation of our written characters from the old Phrenician letters. Tliis gave 
me a dark intimation of the inner dependence of languages, of which I heard 
and saw much from my brother's studies, and from pursuing the investigation 
myself. The Greek especially lost in my eyes much of its strangeness when 
I recognized these written characters again in German. The idea of harmony 
tliat I gained at that time had no effect on my life then, but a powerful one at a 
later period. 

At this time I read many kinds of juvenile writings. The story of Samuel 
Lawills made a lively impression on me. I wished a ring for myself Avhich by 



LETTER TO DUIvE OF MEININGEN. 31 

a pressure on the finger could inform me of any objectionable design of the 
hand, and I was very indignant at the youthful possessor of this ring who 
threw it away in anger because it pressed him quite hard in a moment when he 
wished to do a passionate deed. 

The time of my confirmation passed, and this, like the preparation for it, waa 
carried on by my uncle. I experienced in this the most effective and penetrat- 
ing impression of my life — the threads of my being found their point of 
unity and rest at that time. 

Choice of Vocation. 

I was destined for some civil calling, and the question was now asked — for 
what ? It was already decided by my step-mother that I should not study. 
Since two of my brothers had devoted themselves to study, she feared that by 
new expenses the property of my father would be too much diminished. 

There is in our country a vocation which is frequently chosen by tlie most 
respectable and faithful parents for their sons. It is a situation in financial 
and mercantile affairs. The aspirants for this course have two ways of 
entrance ; either the one who enters it begins with a subordinate revenue offi- 
cer as secretary, or with one of the highest civil officers as servant. As my 
ability in writing and reckouing appeared to my father satisfactory and suffi- 
cient for this course, and as he also knew very well that it would lead later not 
only to a life free from care, but to property, he destined me for this calling. 
But the revenue officer who could use a young man of this kind gave reasons 
why he could not and did not wish to receive me then. 

Something in my soul strove against eitlier of these two resources, something 
which absolutely kept me from treading that path, although all kinds of invit- 
ing allurements were held out. My father meant well and honorably by me, 
but destiny willed it otherwise. Yet it is extremely probable that in this case 
an externally careless and happy lot would have fallen to me, while I now have 
to strive with care and poverty. Enough ; this course was closed to me. My 
wish and my desire were now considered. I wanted to be a husbandman, but 
in the entire meaning of the word, for I loved the mountains, the fields and 
the woods ; also I heard that to acquire skill in this department one must 
understand fully geometry and surveying. After what I had opportunely 
learned to know of the latter, this prospect was delightful to me. ]My father 
sought to find me a place, but the stewards demanded too much apprentice 
money. At this time he made the acquaintance of a forester who had a great 
reputation as geometrician and assessor of taxes. They came to an agreement, 
and a contract was made for two years' instruction in forest matters, taxing, 
geometry and surveying. I was fifteen years old when I began, in 1797, as 
the forester's apprentice. He showed me repeatedly his many-sided knowl- 
edge, only he did not understand the art of teaching others ; also the business 
of water transportation did not allow him to devote to me the promised and 
necessary time for my instruction. So soon as I was clear on that point, my 
own peculiar life drove me to use the really good books on forest affairs and 
geometry which I found there. I made the acquaintance also of a physician 
of a neighboring market town, who from love of it indulged in physics, and he 
gave me botanical books by which I became acquainted with other than wood 
plants. I used the long time of the forester's absence, during which I was left 
entirely to myself, for drawing a kind of m_ap of the district in which I lived ; 
botany, however, busied me chiefly. My church religion changed into a relig- 



32 LETTER TO DUKE OF MEININGEN. 

ious life in nature, and in the last half year I lived entirely in and with planta, 
which attracted me wonderfully, without, however, the meaning of the inner 
life of the plant world yet dawning on me. The collecting and drying of plants 
I carried on with the greatest zeal. This time, in manifold ways, was devoted 
to my self education, self information and elevation. 
Influence of Theatricals. 

I now mention an incident, the most important to my inner condition. 
There is a little country town a league distant from my dwelling-place. A 
company of wandering actors had arrived there who played in the princely 
castle. After I had once seen one representation, hardly one of the following 
remained unsought by me. The exhibition made a deep and vital impression 
on me, and this so much the more as a long denied nourishment seemed to be 
supplied to my feelings by it. These impressions were much more lasting and 
effective to me, as every time after the play I retraced my way home in a dark 
or starry night and worked over to myself the purport of the play. My inter- 
est led me to seek the actors, and among them an earnest young man especially 
attracted me, with whom I spoke of his calling. I congratulated him on being 
a member of a company which was able to cause such beautiful effects on the 
human disposition, and expressed also the wish to be a member of such a com- 
pany. Then this honorable man painted the actor's vocation to me as a glar- 
ing and deceptive evil, and confessed to me that he had chosen tins calling only 
by necessity and would soon leave it. 

My father, to whom I had freely revealed my attendance at the plays, 
reproached me bitterly on this account, and regarded my action as highlj' culpa- 
ble, which contradicted greatly my own experience, as I placed my play attend- 
ance beside my best church attendance. Later, as so often already, my brother 
was the mediator between my father and myself. In 1799, St. John's day, my 
appreuticesliip was at an end. The forester who had now the advantage of my 
activity wished to keep me a year more ; but a higher purpose was awakened 
in me. I wished to carry on mathematics and botany more comprehensively, 
and would not remain. When my time had expired i left and returned to the 
paternal roof. My master knew well that he had not fulfilled his duty towards 
me, and in this probably oppressive consciousness he took a not exactly honor- 
able course of procedure towards me. He did not know my private work, for 
example, the study of some elementary mathematical books which I was easily 
able to comprehend. Besides he was dissatisfied that I would not remain a 
year longer. He sent a letter to my father in which he brought bitter com- 
plaints against me, and put the blame of my ignorance entirely on myself. 
This letter reached my parents' house before I did, and my father sent it to my 
brother, who was preacher in a village through which my homeward way led. 
Soon after I arrived at his residence he showed me the letter of accusation. I 
righted myself by disclosure of my master's unconscientious way of dealing, as 
well as by setting forth my private work, and in a reply to my master I exam- 
ined all the charges made against me and his conduct toward me, so that I satis- 
fied my father and brother. My mother saw, however, in the forester's verdict, 
the confirmation of her own views. The aspirations of my spirit, which al- 
ready began to quicken into existence, were again fettered, and my life ap- 
peared again cold and hard. 



LETTER TO DUKE OF JIEININGEN. 33 

Studies at Jena. « 

It happened that my father had to make a remittance of money to one of 
my brothers, who was studying medicine in Jena. I had notliiug to do, and 
was appointed a messenger. Arrived in Jena, and penetrated by the active in- 
tellectual life, I wished to stay there. It was eight weeks to the close of the 
summer half year of 1799. My brother wrote my father that I could fill this 
time profitably an Jena, and, in consequence of his letter, I was allowed to re- 
main. I now received instruction in topographical and local drawing, and 
employed the whole time on it. 

On Michaelmas Day I returned home with my brother. My purpose and 
spirit were aroused in many ways, and I expressed the wish to my brother to 
be allowed to study also. My father was willing to give his permission, if I 
knew how to plan the means to reach my end. I possessed a very narrow 
maternal property, but esteemed it insufficient. I was still not of age, and so 
needed the consent of my guardian. When I had received this, I went, in 
1799, to Jena as a student. My registration named me student of philosophy, 
which ai>peared to me very strange, because I had only thought of quite prac- 
tical knowledge as the object of my study, and had formed another idea of 
philosophy which I often heard named. The word made on my dreamy, 
easily-moved susceptible life a very great impression, and its effect did not fail. 
The impression disappeared, it is true, almost at the beginning ; but it gav& 
my studies an unexpected higher meaning. 

I heard lectures on practical mathematics, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, 
mineralogy, botany, natural history, physics, chemistry, the science of finance, 
on the care of forest trees and forest matters, on architectural and common 
building, and surveying. 

I continued topographical drawing. At first, the mathematical instruction 
appeared to me unimportant ; later, however, I could not follow in every case. 
The lectures of my excelleno teacher had not the same value that they might 
have had and would have had ii I had seen in the sequence of the instruction 
and the progress of the same more inner necessity and less arbitrariness. It 
was this consideration that decided me against this process of teaching. If I felt 
it already in the pure mathematics, how much more must it be the case with 
practical mathematics, and especially with experimental physics. The ex- 
periments could not captivate me. I sought and wished to see the whole in its 
inner connection. In botany, I had a sensible, loving and benevolent teacher 
(Batsch). Through him, my insight into nature was essentially quickened, 
and my love for observing it made more active. I shall always think of this 
man with gratitude. He was also my teacher in natural history. Two ideas 
which he set forth especially laid hold of and satisfied me : first, the thought of 
the relation of animals, branching out on all sides ; and, second, that the bone 
or framework of fish, birds and men is one and the same, and that of man is to 
be considered perfected as the ground type of all the rest, which nature strives 
to represent in their subordinate frames. 

During my abode at the university, I lived very much retired, and economi- 
cally. 1 appeared seldom in public places, and visited only my older brother, 
who was studying medicine at Jena during the first year of my stay there. 
Consequences of Debt. 

\Vlien I went to the university, my father had, I believe, given me the entire 
remittance for the first half year. My brother asked for a part of the money, 
3 



34 LETTER TO DUKE OF MEININGEN. 

which I did not n^d immediately. He hoped to he able soon to refund tno 
stun. I gave him willingly the greater part of my little stipend ; but, unfor- 
tunately, I could not get the money back, and thereby came into great diffi- 
culty myself. Towards the end of the third term the pressure of my situation 
increased. I had become thirty thalers in debt to the proprietor of an eating- 
house, if I mistake not. When this man had made legal demands for payment 
several times, which I could never satisfy, and had even turned to my father 
himself, but had received from him a very positive denial, I was threatened 
with imprisonment in case of longer failure to pay. And I really met with 
this punishment. My guardian, who still had some means at my command, 
would not assist me, because the letter of the law spoke against his stepping in 
as a partisan. I was the sport of the caprice of this inflexible man, and lan- 
guished as such for nine weeks in the prison at Jena. But, finally, my renun- 
ciation of any later paternal inheritance satisfied my father, and I was freed in 
the summer of 1801. I left Jena and my academical course immediately, and 
returned to my father's house. I was now just nineteen years old. Naturally, 
I entered the house with a heavy heart, a troubled mind and oppressed spirit. 
Spring, however, quickened and aWakened all nature, and called back my 
slumbering endeavors. 

My father now strove to obtain a suitable position for me in my cliosen call- 
ing— to create, at least, an activity which should bring me nearer it. A favor- 
able opportunity soou presented itself. A relative on my father's side had an 
estate in Hildburg which a steward managed. The friendship of this relation 
for my father allowed me to become acquainted with practical husbandry, un- 
der the oversight of this steward. 

The misunderstanding with my father often painfully occupied my thoughts 
at this time. I had to respect and reverence him. In his extreme old age he 
was strong and sound in body as in mind, impressive in word and counsel, and 
vigorous in action, earnest, and had a firm will, but was at the same time full 
of noble self-sacrifice. I knew that my father was old and near the grave — it 
grieved me not to be understood by him. 

Death of the Father. 

After an abode of some months on this estate, a letter called me home. My 
father carried his anxiety for my future on his heart until the end. He died 
in February, 1802. 

I now stood free in this relation, and could determine my life according to 
circumstances. With this feeling I left home again at Easter of the same 
year, in order to take the place of actuary of the forest court near Bamberg. 
The place lay in a rarely beautiful district. My duties were light. After 
them, I could go out freely in the spring weather, and grow strong in mind 
and feelings. 

Although this officer, with his whole family, was a Catholic, yet he chose a 
tutor recommended by Professor Cains, who had many excellent qualities, so 
that we were soon friendly. 

In tlie early spring of 1803 1 left this place and went to Bamberg with the firm 
expectation that the proposed government and land changes, and the projected 
land survey, would quickly give me an appropriate sphere of action. My expec- 
tation was in no wise disappointed. I made it my aim to become acquainted 
with the land geometers there, and immediately received from one a similar 
employment. He had had much surveying to do and had it still on hand. He 



LETTER TO DUKE OF MEININGEN. 35 

commissioned me to prepare the necessar}^ maps because I had some readiness 
in map drawing. This gave me occupation for a longer time, ■which was com- 
pensated sufficiently for my needs. Now naturally with the new government 
the appointment of land surveyors was agitated, and those living in the city had 
to hand in plans of Bamberg as a test. I was not unacquainted with such work 
and prepared a plan with great pleasure and gave it in. My work received 
approbation, and I my reward ; yet as an inexperienced young man, a stranger, 
I received no appointment. After this work was finished I was commissioned 
to measure a little estate. This business had for me weighty consequences. I 
only mention one point ; the joint proprietor was a young Doctor of Philosophy 
who inclined toward the new school of Schelling. It could not but happen that 
we alluded to that which animated our inner life, and so it came to pass that 
he gave me to read, Schelliug's " Bruno or the Spirit of the Age." What I 
read in tliis book influenced me powerfully. The friendly young man, who 
was not much older than myself (we had already seen each other in Jena), 
saw my lively interest in the contents of the book. I had also repeatedly 
spoken to him of it. Therefore he said to me one day the following words. 

Philosophy and Art. 
which were very strange and inexplicable to me then : "Guard against philoso- 
phy ; it leads you to doubt and night. Devote yourself to art ; it gives life, 
peace, and joy." I remembered the words of the young man, yet I could not 
understand him since I looked on philosophy as belonging to tlie life of man, 
and could not comprehend how one could come into night and doubt if he fol- 
lowed quietly the inner life. His words made me turn my attention to myself, 
my life and endeavors, and showed two separate and very different ways of 
life. My friend, the teacher of the officer's family, had in the mean time left 
his place. He told me that he was on the point of going to Frankfort and 
from there to France. I saw him depart regretfully, not suspecting that some 
years later, life would bring us together and he would directly decide my career. 
Here also, as so often in life, separation led to unity and unity to separation. 

I pass over several essential influences for the building up of my character 
and moral life, and come to the end of my stay in Bamberg. I had now to 
think in earnest of seeking again a certain definite work. I really stood alone. 
I had no one who could help me. I caught the idea from a pai:)er then much 
read, "The Universal German Advertiser," of advertising for a place and 
adding as a proof of my qualifications some architectural and geometrical work 
to the illustrations of the paper. I immediately entered upon the scheme. 
For an architectural work I chose the plan of a nobleman's castle in the coun- 
try together with the proper out-buildings ; for the geometrical design I chose 
a table out of the maps prepared by me earlier, which I completed. In 1803 I 
sent these, together with my application for employment, to the paper named, 
with the request that the editor would add some approving words to my 
sketches. My work and testimonials won approbation. IMy request was grati- 
fied, and I received different commissions each of which brought something wel- 
come to me. The choice was difficult ; but I finally decided on the acceptance 
of a prirate secretarj'ship with the president and former private counselor of 
Dewitz in Mecklenberg, who now resided in Gross Milchow. In the rough 
and very severe winter days of February I journeyed thither on foot. The 
people, simple, active young men from Saxony and Prussia, received me in a 
friendly manner. I had never yet had the opportunity even to see the accounts 



36 LETTER TO DUKE OF MEININGEN. 

of husbandry on a large scale, much less to carry them on, and here I had to 
do it by a perfect and plain scheme by which everything was written down in 
tlie most exact way. This was of the greatest advantage to me, and thus I 
was able to satisfy my new employer, and especially his wife, who examined 
into the smallest things in the closest manner. The surroundings of the estates 
of Dewitz were very charming. Good fortune had led me at all times into 
beautiful natural regions. I constantly enjoyed what nature offered me, and 
she was always truly bound to me like a mother. When I had acquired some 
skill my business became simple ; it had a regular recurring weekly course and 
gave me time to think of my own improvement. My work on these estates 
was, however, short. 

The direction of my life and mind was already decided, and a star had risen 
inwardly for me which I must observe. Therefore I could consider my occu- 
pation then only as a sheet anchor to be given up as soon as the opportunity 
was furnished to take up again my special vocation. This opportunity soon 
came. My uncle, who, like my brother, bore me in love on his heart, had just 
died. To the last he had thought of me, and charged my brother to do every- 
thing to give me a secure position in life, and to prevent my leaving the place 
which I had for a time, at least, without a certain prospect of a sure and better 
one. Providence ordered it otherwise. Directly after his death through the 
little inheritance falling to me, the means were in my hand to fulfill the wish 
of my heart, the strivings of my spirit. So wonderfully God guides the destiny 
of men ! 

So though healthy in body and soul, head and heart, yet my spirit felt soon 
the need of a higher culture. The president had two sons who were trained in 
Halle in pedagogy. They visited their parents in company with their teacher. 
He was a mathematician and versed in physics. I found him open and com- 
municative. He was so good as to name and point out to me the manifold 
problems which he had laid out for himself for solution, and thus awakened 
my long slumbering love for mathematics and physics. 

For some time my desire had turned especially to architecture, so that I was 
firmly resolved to choose it for my career and to study it with all earnestness. 
The time when my present Avork could no longer satisfy me had come, and 
I asked for my dismissal. The highest outward inducement to it was this : 
I remained in correspondence with the young man whom I learned to know as 
a teacher in Bamberg, who had left that place to go to Frankfort and then to 
France. He now lived again as tutor in a merchant's family in the Nether- 
lands. I imparted to him my wish to give up my place and seek a position in 
architectural affairs, and asked him whether in the accomplishment of my wish 
I could not work best in Frankfort, where so much life and human intercourse 
were united. My friend wrote me that in the beginning of the summer he 
should spend some time in Frankfort, and if I could also come there, a con- 
ference on the situation would be most advantageous. In consequence of this 
promise I took the firm and unchangeable resolve to step out of my place in 
the early spring and go to Frankfort. Yet where should I procure the money 
for such a journey ? In this difficulty I wrote again to my oldest brother who 
had so justly understood me and asked for assistance. His answer came. 
"With joyful trembling and anxiety I held it in my hands. For an hour I car- 
ried it around with me before I opened it ; for days I did not read it, for it 
appeared to me highly improbable that he would be able to do anything for the 



LETTER TO DUKE OF MEININGEN. 3 7 

accomplishment of the wish of my soul, and so I feared to find in the letter the 
destruction of my life. When after some days of alternation between hope and 
doubt I finally opened it, I was not a little astonished that in the beginning of 
it the most heartfelt sympathy was expressed. The farther contents moved me 
deeply. It contained the news of my uncle's death, and the announcement that 
a legacy had fallen to me as well as to my brothers and sisters. Tlie die was 
cast. From tliis moment my inner life had quite a different signification and 
character, and yet it was all unknown to me. I was like a tree that blooms 
and knows it not. At the end of April, 1805, with peace in my heart and joy 
in my soul, I left the struggling purpose and spirit of my former condition. 
The first days of a rarely beautiful May I spent in the best sense of the word 
with a friend. This very dear friend lived on an estate beautifully situated in 
TJckermark. In these beautiful but very quiet and solitary surroundings I 
fluttered merrily about from one flower to another like a butterfly. I deeply 
loved nature in her colored and jeweled attire and drew near to her in my 
youthful gayety. When I first made the discovery that the landscape viewed 
with this feeling appears in heightened beauty, I expressed this perception in 
the following words : " The more deeply we bind ourselves to nature, so much 
the more adorned she gives us everything back." In May, 1805, I arrived on 
my journey at the house of my brother, so often mentioned, who had now re- 
ceived another place as pastor. 

He was kind and full of love as ever, and instead of blaming me expressed 
his assent in the most decided manner. He encouraged me to follow my inner 
determination faithfully and unchangeably, and wrote this sentiment in my 
album at my departure : " Man's lot is to struggle towards an end. Be a 
man, dear brother, firm and decided. Overcome the obstacles which oppose 
you and be confident. You will gain your end." So I departed encouraged 
by sympathy and agreement, strengthened and confirmed in my resolution by 
my brother. 

Just before midsummer I entered Frankfort, according to the agreement 
mentioned between my friend and myself. During my journey of many weeks 
in that beautiful spring-time I had time to become quiet and collected. My 
friend kept faith and we worked together towards bringing on a favorable 
future for me. The plan of seeking a place as architect was firmly held. 
Many favorable circumstances also seemed to point towards its accomplish- 
ment ; yet my friend was determined that I should ensure my support by pri- 
vate instruction until something farther should show itself for the maturing of 
my plan. But the more decided the prospect became, so much the more a 
repressed feeling took possession of me. I began to ask myself, " How can 
you work through architecture for the ciilture and ennobling of man ? " Yet 
I remained true to my resolution and began to work at my calling with an 
architect. My friend who was unceasingly active for the fulfillment of my 
aim, introduced me to a friend of his who was then head teacher in the model 
school just established in Frankfort. My life and aim was mentioned and dis- 
cussed. I expressed myself freely. " O ! " said Gruner, turning to me, " give 
up architecture ; it is not for you. Become an educator. We need a teacher 
in our school. Make up your mind and you shall have the place." My friend 
advised the acceptance of Gruner's proposal, and I began to waver. Then an 
outward circum.stance happened that decided me. I received news that my 
testimonials, especially those which I had received in Jena, were lost. They 



38 LETTER TO DUKE OF MEININGEN. 

were sent to a man who had actively interested himself in me, and I could not 
divine by what ill luck the loss had happened. I therefore concluded that 
providence had taken doMn the bridge of retreat and hesitated no longer, but 
willingly and joyfully grasped the hand offered me and was soon a teacher in 
the model school in Frankfort-on-the-Main. 

Teacher in Model School — Pestalozzi. 

The watchword in education at that time was Pestalozzi. That word waa 
also pointed out to me as mine, for Gruner when an under teacher in the school 
had been Pestalozzi's pupil, and as head teacher had written a book on this 
method of instruction. I remembered now that in my early boyhood in my 
father's house I learned from a paper the following news : In Switzerland, so 
I understood, a man, Pestalozzi by name, living for forty years quite isolated 
from the world had learned to read, write and reckon by himself and his own 
exertions. This announcement acted beneficially on me. I felt then the slow- 
ness and unsatisfactoriness of my own development, and this intelligence con- 
soled me, and filled me with hope that I might supply the deficiency in my 
culture by my own efforts. 

It was natural that everything about Pestalozzi affected me wonderfully, and 
I formed the resolution of seeing this man, who so thought and strove to act in 
his life and work. In August, 1815, I went to Yverdun where Pestalozzi had 
come shortly before. As soon as I arrived I was received in an especially 
friendly manner by Pestalozzi and his teachers on account of the recommenda- 
tion of Gruner and his co-laborers, and was conducted into the recitations and 
left more or less to myself. I was still very inexperienced in teaching. What 
I saw elevated and depressed me, awoke and amazed me. My stay lasted four- 
teen days. I worked over what I could to give a true written account of how 
I saw the whole and the impression it made on me. 

I left Yverdun in the middle of October with the resolve to return for a lon- 
ger time as soon as I was able. When I returned to Fi'ankfort my appoint- 
ment was definitely confirmed by the consistory. The work which awaited me 
in the school was assistance in the preparation of an entirely new plan of 
instruction for the whole institution, which consisted of four or five boys' and 
two or three girls' classes, and was attended by nearly two hundred children. 
There were four regularly appointed and nine private teachers. The subjects 
which were assigned to me were arithmetic, dr.awing, geography, and the Ger- 
man language. I taught mostly in the middle classes. 

Of the impression of my first instruction and school keeping in a class of 
from thirty to forty boys, between the ages of nine and eleven, I spoke thus in a 
letter to my brother : " It seems to me as if I had found something not known 
and yet long desired, long missed ; as if I had finally found my native ele- 
ment." I was like a fish in water or a bird in the air. Before I carry far- 
ther this side of my life development, I must take up another thing which was 
more important for me by far as a man, an educator and teacher, and which 
was soon complicated with the first. 

Soon after my early friend M'hom I had met in Frankfort had established 
me with Gruner, he returned to his situation as tutor. 

Private Tutor. 

Since it was not possible for him to present me personally to a family that 
desired suitable private instruction for their sons, he did it in writing, and sev- 
eral days before my journey to Yverdun his kind letter introduced me to this 



LETTER TO DUKE OF MEIXl^'GEJT. 39 

family. lustructlon and education were desired for three sons. I saw them, 
and after they had gone away their personal qualities were pointed out to me, 
the nietliod of teaching which they had formerly enjoyed and its consequence. 
I was taken into consultation on the subject of their farther instruction. I had 
really not thought of education at all as an objective thing. I had indeed an 
inner dread of giving private instruction; but the trustful indulgence Avith 
which I was met here, and the clear, fresh, friendly glance which met me, espe- 
cially from both the younger boys, determined me to give them daily two hours 
of teaching and to share their walks. I gave them lessons in arithmetic and 
the German language. The first were soon arranged. I gave them according 
to Pestalozzi's method. But I had great difficulty with the instruction in 
language. I began to give it according to the German grammars used then 
and now. I prepared mj^self as well as possible, and exercised myself in the 
most careful manner on what was unknown to me. But this way of teaching 
tired me. I could endure it neither for my pupils nor myself. Then I began 
to connect it with Pestalozzi's mother book. In this way it went much better, 
yet this did not satisfy me. In numbers, by the use of the tables in Pestalozzi's 
book, I reached the same result which I had seen in Switzerland. My pupils 
often had the solution almost before the last word of the problem was spoken. 
In our walks I exerted myself to enter into the life of the children and to fur- 
ther it. I lived my own early life once again, but in an improved form, and it 
now became clear to me in its individuality and its universality. I now devoted 
all my thought and all my work to building up and educating men. 

My life in the school with my pupils, excellent fellow-teachers, and occa- 
sioual visitors was also ver}- elevating and beneficial. Favored by the situation 
of the school building the scholars could exercise freely and play in the court 
and garden, and so an important means was given to the teachers of growing 
inwardly with their pupils. All voluntarily resolved that once a week each 
teacher should go with his pupils into the open air. Each one chose a lasting 
or temporary occupation with them as it suited him. I busied my class espe- 
cially with the plant world. As teacher of geography I used this opportunity 
to bring them to the contemplation and comprehension of the earth's surface, 
connected the instruction in geography with the view thus obtained, and let it 
grow out of it. I took everything according to nature, and drew the picture 
immediately, diminished in size, on an even surface of ground or sand chosen 
for the purpose. 

When the picture was firmly grasped and imprinted, we drew it in school on 
a blackboard lying horizontally. It was sketched first by the teacher and 
pupils together, then made an exercise for every scholar. Our representations 
of the earth's surface had at first a spherical form like the apparent horizon. 
At the first public examination which the school gave, I was so fortunate as 
not only to rejoice in the undivided approbation of the parents present, but 
especially of my superiors, and they said geography should be so taught. The 
child must first learn to know his surroundings before he goes into the distance. 
The scliolars were at home in the vicinity of the city as in their own rooms, 
and noticed quickly and promptly every relation of the surface of their district. 
In teaching numbers I did not have the lower, but only the middle classes. As 
teacher of this I received encouraging approbation. 

I had not only the joy of attaining results which perfectly satisfied the ex- 
aminers, but I saw that my pupils' worked with pleasure, zeal, and independ- 



40 LETTER TO DUKE OF MEININGEN. 

ence. Concerning my own life and efforts at that time I expressed myself in 
tlie following words : " I M'ish to cultivate men who stand rooted in nature 
with their feet in God's earth, whose heads reach toward and look into the 
heavens, Avhose hearts unite the richly formed life of earth and nature, and the 
purity and peace of heaven — God's earth and God's heaven." 

Often now the wish arose to be released from my engagement to the model 
school. I had pledged myself to remain in it as teacher at least for three years. 
The celebrated head teacher Gruner knew enough of human nature to see that 
such an active man as I could not work well in such an institution as that of 
which he was the head, and I was released from my obligation. My departure 
from the school was decided and I could develop myself again freely and uncon- 
strainedly. The three boys to whom I had given private instruction in num- 
bers and language now needed a teacher on account of the departure of their 
former tutor. The task of seeking a teacher in the circle of my acquaintance 
was given me as being best acquainted with the character and needs of these 
children. I earnestly turned in all directions and among others to my oldest 
brother. I divulged to him the qualifications which appeared to me necessary 
for a teacher. He wrote me decidedly and simply. He could not propose a 
teacher such as I wished for the relations pointed out, and did not believe that 
I would find one ; for the pure inner life would be lacking in one possessing 
knowledge and the outside experience of life ; the care and recognition of the 
same in another who possessed this. So the thing stood for several months, 
when in my. deep love for the boys and anxiety for their education I sought 
to place myself in the parent's place. This decided me to become their teacher 
myself. After a very hard struggle I expressed my resolution. It was thank- 
fully received, and understood as I gave it. As my choice and decision were 
connected with a deep inner struggle, so was also my initiation into the place. 
There were two unchangeable things in our contract. One was that I should 
never be obliged to reside with my pupils in the city, and that from the first 
they should be freely given up to me. 

Takes Sole Charge of these Pupils. 

I entered this, my new educational work, in July, 1807. I was now really 
twenty-five years old, but my development was several years younger. I could 
not feel myself so old, nor had I a consciousness of my age. 

The highest activity for education and instruction began in me. The fiirst 
thing which occupied me was tlie distinct feeling that to live one's self is the 
true and proper education. Then the questions : What is education, and what 
do the means of elementary instruction set forth byPestalozzi signify? What ia 
principally the object of instruction ? To answer the question — What is the 
object of instruction ? — I proceeded from the following considerations : Man 
lives in a world of objects which act upon him, on which he wishes to work ; 
thus he must know them according to their nature, their character, and their 
relation to each other and to himself. The objects have form (lessons on form), 
size (lessons on size), are manifold (lessons in number). I had in the expres- 
sion outer world only nature before my eves. I so lived in nature that artistic 
or human works did not exist for me. Therefore it cost me a long struggle to 
make the consideration of the works of man a subject of elementary culture. 
It was for me a great widening of my inner and outer sight when at the expres-. 
sion " outer world," I thought of the realm of human work. 

So I sought to make everything clear through man, through his relation to 



LETTER TO DUICE OF MEININGEN. 41 

himself and to the outer world. The highest sentiment which came from me 
then was : " Everything is unity ; everything rests in, proceeds from, strives 
for, leads and returns to unity." This striving for imity is the foundation of 
the different phenomena in human life. Fortunately works on education ap- 
peared then from Seiler, Jean Paul and others. They helped me partly by the 
agreement tlierein presented with my views, partly by their opposition. What 
especially pressed on me at this time was the lack of an organized series of 
objects of instruction. Cheerful and free action springs from viewing the 
whole as a unity ; it is made necessary by the being of everything and the life 
and action resting in it. AVhen I now seek to make clear to myself the life and 
influence of an educator, the notes of that time meet me, freshly inspiring and 
cheering me. I now look back into that childhood of my educational life and 
learn from it, as I look back to and learn from the childhood of my natural life. 

Why is all cliildhood and youth so full of richness and knows it not, and why 
does it lose it without knowing it, and learn first to know it when it is lost 1 
Must it always remain so 1 Will it not finally — not soon — happen that the 
experience, the insiglit, the knowledge of age will build a defense, a support 
and protection around childhood and youth ? Otherwise what advantage to age 
is its experience, to the hoary man his wisdom ? What advantage to tlie human 
race is the experience of age, and the wisdom of the old man if it sinks with 
him into the grave ? 

My first life with my pupils was very circumscribed. It consisted in living 
and walking in the open air. Cut off from the influence of a city education, I 
did not yet venture to introduce the simple life of nature into the sphere of 
education. My younger pupils tliemselves taught me and guided me to that. 
In the following year this life of my pupils was especially roused and animated, 
when the father gave them a piece of a field for a garden which we cultivated 
in common. Their highest joy was to give their parents and me presents of 
the fruits of their garden. Oh, how their eyes glistened wlien tliey could do it ! 
Beautiful plants and little shrubs from the field, the great garden of God, were 
planted and cared for in the little gardens of the children. After tliat time my 
youthful life did not appear to me so entirely useless. I learned wliat a very 
different thing it is for tlie care of a plant, whether one has seen and watched its 
natural life at the different epochs of its unfolding, or if he has alwaj'S stood 
far from nature. Then when I lived in nature with my first pupils so cheer- 
fully and gayly, I said to myself that the life of man connects itself with the 
care of nature's life. For were not those jjresents of flowers and plants the 
expression of regard and acknowledgment of the love for parents and teacher, 
the expression of the child's own loA'e and joyful childish thought 1 A child 
that freely and voluntarily seeks flowers, cherishes and cares for them in order 
to wind them into a bouquet or wreath for parents or teacher cannot be a bad 
child or become a bad man. Such a child can easily be led to the love, to grati- 
tude to, and knowledge of his father, God, who gives him such gifts. I assert 
that a child naturally guided needs no positive ecclesiastical form, because the 
lovingly cared for, and thereby steadily and strongly developed, hiunan hfe, also 
the cloudless child's life, is of itself a Christ-like one. 
Life as an Educator. 

I now turn to the recital of my life as an educator. What a young man 
gains in one year from nature when she lies clear and open before him, slie does 
not give him when the vision is closed and he is separated from contact with her. 



42 LETTER TO DUKE OF MEININGEN. 

Both these seasons give different results and make different demands. When 
more separated from nature he becomes more concentrated within himself. 
The life of youth then demands material for firmly establishing itself, and lends 
to otherwise s]iai3eless material a living form. My pupils soon came to me with 
this demand, from which arose the following self-questionings : What did you 
do as a boy ? What happened to you to quicken your impulse for activity and 
representation ? By what means was this impulse at that age most fitly satis- 
fied 1 What did you wish as the end of this satisfaction 1 Then out of my ear- 
liest boyhood something came to me which gave to me at that moment all that I 
needed. It was the simple art of imprinting on smooth paper signs and forms 
by regular lines. I have often tried this simple art and it has never failed of ita 
end. From these forms on paper we advanced to the investigation of the paper 
itself, then of pasteboard, and finally of wood. My later experience has taught 
me to know still other materials for making forms and shapes. But I must dwell 
yet a moment with that simple occupation of paper forms, because it occupies 
the child so entirely for a time, so satisfies and fills the demand of his strength. 
Man demands to know nature in the variety of her forms and shapes, and to 
understand it in its unity, in its inner activity and reality, and therefore he 
goes on in his course of development and formation according to the process 
of nature ; he imitates in his plays her creative process. In his early plaj-s the 
young human being likes to imitate the first activities of nature. Thus he 
likes to liuild, for are not the first solid forms of nature built 1 Let this intima- 
tion of the higher meaning of the free occupations and plays suffice here. 
From the love, zeal, persistence and joy with which claildren pursue these occu- 

Pla)/ — Activity — Gifts. 
pations arises- a very important thing of a different character. tPlay must 
necessarily bring a child into a deeper, higher communion with a higher exist- 
ing whole. If he builds a house he builds it to inhabit it, like grown people, 
and to realize limitations and to impart something to others ! Notice the fact 
that the child who receives freely, gives freely if his heart is not smothered and 
dulled by the profusion of the gifts he receives. This is inevitable with the 
innocent child. Fortunate is he who understands how to satisfy this need. 
That only has worth to a cWld at this time which he can use as a means of 
union between his loved ones and himself. This should be respected by par- 
ents and teachers and used as a means of awakening the instinct of activity and 
representation and unity with others, and therefore not even a trifling gift of a 
child should remain unnoticed. 

I strove earnestly to give my pupils the best possible education, the best pos- 
eible instruction ; this end, however, could not be reached in my condition at 
that time and with my degree of information. 

Residence iviih Pestalozzi. 

When I fully realized this, the thought arose that I should be benefited by 
a stay with Pestalozzi. I expressed this with great decision, and in conse- 
quence it was decided in the summer of 1808 that I should go to Yverdun with 
my three pupils. Thus it happened after a short time that I was there as both 
teacher and scholar, educator and pupil. In order to be fully and perfectly 
placed in the midst and the heart of Pestalozzi's work, I wished to reside with 
my pupils in the building of the institution, in the castle so called. We wished 
to share everything with the rest ; but this wish was not granted us, for strange 
selfishness interfered. Yet I soon came to dwell as near the institution as 



LETTER TO DUKE OF MEINIKGEN. 43 

possiljle, so that we shared dinner, afternoon lunch and supper, the instruction 
adapted to us and the whole life of the pupils. I for myself had nothing more 
serious to do than to allow my pupils to take a full share of that life, strength- 
ening spirit and body. With this aim we shared all instruction, and it was a 
special care to me to talk with Pestalozzi on every subject from its first point 
of connection, to learn to know it from its foundation. I soon felt the need of 
unity of endeavor in means and end. Therefore I sought to gain the highest 
insight into everything. I was pupil in all subjects, numbers, form, singing, 
reading, drawing, language, geography, natural science, dead languages, etc. 
In what M'as offered for youthful life, for comprehensive teaching, for higher 
instruction, I missed that satisfying of the human being, the essence of the 
subject. Pestalozzi's views were very universal, and, as experience taught, only 
awakening to those already grounded in the right. I revealed my feelings on 
this subject very earnestly and plainly to Pestalozzi, and finally, in 1810, resolved 
to leave Yverdun. In connection Avith the subjects taught, the instruction in 
language struck me first iuits great imperfection, arbitrariness, and lifelessness. 
The discovery of a satisfactory method of teaching the mother tongue occupied 
me especially. I proceeded from the following considerations : Language is 
the image, tlie representat on of a world, and is related to the outer world 
through articulately formed tones ; if I wish properly to represent a thing I 
must know the original according to its character. Tlie outer world has ob- 
jects ; I also must have a decided form, a decided word for tlie object. The 
objects, however, show qualities ; language must, therefore, have qiiality words 
in its construction. These qualities are necessarily bound up with the objects ; 
qualities of being, having and becoming. 

I learned also to recognize boyish play in the free air in its power, develop- 
ing and strengthening spirit, disposition and body. In these plays and in what 
was connected with them, I recognized the chief source of the moral strength 
of the young people in the institution. 

The higher symbolical meaning of play had not then opened to me, so I 
regarded it merely as a moral power for mind and body. The walks were like 
the plays in their moral influence, especially those in Pestalozzi's company. 
There is no question that Pestalozzi's public, and especially his evening reflec- 
tions, in which he liked to exert himself to awaken and unfold the ideal of 
noble manhood and true human love, contributed most essentially to the devel- 
opment of the inner life. On the whole, I spent in Yverdun an inspiring, 
grand, and for my life, decisive time. In 1810 I returned to Frankfort. I had 
wished to enter a university immediately, but saw myself obliged to remain in 
my place until July of the coming year. 

Gottingen. — Study of Language and Nature. 

In the beginning of that month, I went to Gottingen. I arrived there in the 
middle of the half year, because I felt that I needed several months to right 
myself, to bring my inner and outer being, my thoughts and actions into har- 
mony. Several months really passed before my inner life quieted itself. I 
sought to find how to place mankind as a whole in and outside of me. So I 
was led back to the first appearance of man on earth, to the country where he 
originated, and to the first expression of mankind, his speech. The study and 
investigation of language formed now the object of my endeavors. Learning 
the eastern languages seemed to me the necessary object of my efforts and 
aspirations, and I forthwith began with Hebrew and Arabic. Trom these I 



44 LETTER TO DUKE OF MEININGEN. 

wished to open a way to other Asiatic tongues, especially the Indian and Per- 
sian. Greek likewise allured me by its fullness, order, and law. I was now 
free. I was happy. I was cheerful, and peace reigned within and without 
me. As I lived alone through the day, I walked late in the afternoon in order 
to be greeted by the light, friendly rays of the sinking sun. I walked until 
nearly midnight in the beautiful suburbs of Gottingen, in order to strengthen 
body and mind. The heavens lit with stars accorded with my feelings So 
the summer half-year had flown and Michaelmas day had come. My self- 
development had imperceptibly led me away from my study of language to 
natural objects. My design of studying nature in her first phenomena and 
elements again sprang up. But my remaining means were too small to con- 
tinue longer at the university. Since I had nothing but my own mental 
strength I thought I could supply the means necessary for the farther attain- 
ment of my end by literary work. I began to be active in that direction, when 
my outer condition took a very different turn through an unexpected legacy. 
I had an aunt, my mother's sister, whose sudden death put me in a condition to 
carry on my desired studies in an unthought-of way. My situation was now 
highly agreeable, and I felt such a quiet joy and cheerfulness as never before. 

Physics, chemistry, mineralogy and natural history were my first studies. 
The study and investigation of nature seemed to me the foundation and cor- 
ner-stone of human development, improvement, and education. The lectures 
on natural history at this university gave me a view of the fundamental forms, 
of crystals and minerals. I could not live an entire term more by my own 
means, but hoped to be able to assure my support in Berlin by giving instruc- 
tion. Therefore I resolved to go there at the beginning of the next winter 
term, in order to study mineralogy, geology, crystallography and their laws. 
Residence in Berlin. 

After a visit of some weeks with my brother in Osterode, I went to Berlin 
in October, 1812. The lectures I had desired gave my mind and spirit what 
I needed, and unfolded in my feelings still more my conviction of the inner 
connection of all cosmic development. For my maintenance I gave instruc- 
tion in a then famous private school. 

Now came the year 1813, pregnant with fate. Every one was called to 
arms, to protect the fatherland. I had indeed a home, a native land, I might 
Bay a motherland, but no fatherland. My native country did not call me. I 
was not Prussian, and so it happened, owing to my retired life, the call to 
arms inspired me little. It was something different that called me, not with 
enthusiasm, but with a firm resolution to enter the ranks of the German sol- 
diers. It was the feeling and consciousness of the ideal Germany, that I re- 
spected as something high and holy in my spirit, and which I wished to be 
everywhere unfettered and free to act. Partlier, the firmness with which I 
held to my educational career, decided me. Although I coixld not really say 
that I had a fatherland, yet it must happen that every boy, that every child 
who should later be educated by me would have a fatherland, and that that 
fatherland now demanded protection, when the child himself could not defend 
it. I could not .possibly think how a young man, capable of bearing arms, 
could become the teacher of children whose country he had not defended with 
his life-blood. This was the second thing that influenced me to my decision. 
Thirdly, the summons to war appeared to me a sign of the common need of 
man, of the country, of the time in which I lived, and I felt that it would be 



LETTER TO DUKE OF MEINIKGEK. 45 

unworthy and unmanly not to struggle for the common necessity of the peo- 
ple among whom one lives, not to bear my part towards rei^elling a common 
danger. Every consideration was secondary to these convictions, even that 
which grew out of my bodily constitution, too feeble for such a life. 
Short Campaign as Soldier. 

At Easter, 1813, I entered Dresden in order to join the infantry division of 
the corps of Lutzow at Leipsic. Owing to the retirement of my life, it was 
natural that I, although matriculated as a real student, yet stood far from the 
others, and really had no acquaintance among them, and so among my strong 
comrades, whom I joined in Dresden, I could find no acquaintance, although 
tliere were so many students from Berlin among them. At the first day's rest 
after our march out of Dresden, our leader introduced to mo one of our com- 
rades from Erfurt, as a Thuringian and fellow-countryman ; it was Langethal. 
Although a passing acquaintance at first, it was destined to be a lasting one. 

Our first march and halt was Meissen. We had already enjoyed, during 
the march, a beautiful spring day, and so we rejoiced during our rest in a yet 
more beautiful evening. Led by the same impulse, all who M'ere students 
found themselves together on an open place ou the banks of the Elbe, in the 
vicinity of a public house, and the old Meissen wine soon united us. We sat 
some twenty in number, a merry circle, at a long tabic, and greeted and 
pledged each other now really for the first time. It was here that Langethal 
brought me his friend at the university of Berlin, the young Middendorff, a 
theological student. We were together until the middle of tlie beautiful 
spring night, and on the following morning we visited the magnificent cathe- 
dral of Meissen. Thus we three found each other, who from that time have 
remained united for now almost fifteen years, in a common struggle and for a 
higher life ; although not always in the same outer bond of life, yet in the 
inner striving for self-education. Langethal and Middendorff had a third 
friend among our comrades, Bauer b}- name. I became acquainted with him 
also at Meissen, I believe ; yet we first associated as friends at Havelburg. 
With him tlie narrow circle of my companions in war was closed. 

My principal care was to improve myself in my present calling, and so one 
of my first endeavors was to make clear to myself the inner necessity and the 
connection of the demands of service and drill ; it came to me very soon and 
easily, from the mathematical, physical side, and strengthened me against 
many little disagreeable tilings which easily befell others when they thought 
this or that command could be omitted as too trifling. During the long stay 
in Havelburg I strengthened my inner life, so far as the service permitted, by 
living much in nature. We friends sought to bo together as much as possible. 
Our camping life was especially pleasant to me, because it made many facta 
of history clear to me. Owing to the fate of our corps, which was dislodged 
from the real theater of war, and with the great aggressiveness of our military 
activity, we passed, at least I did, our wr>,r life as in a dream. Only occasion- 
ally, as at Leipsic, at Dalenburg, at Bremen, and at Berlin, we seemed to wake 
up, yet only to sink again into a feeble dream. 

It was specially oppressive and enervating to me, never to know our real 
relation to the great whole, and to be able to say nothing satisfactory either 
of the reason or the aim of our employment. It was so to me, at least ; others 
might have seen it more clearly and better. The campaign afforded me one 
thing, however. In the course of the actual soldier's life, I aroused myself for 



46 LETTER TO DUKE OF MEUSTINGEN. 

the interest of the German land and people; my exertions became patriotic in 
that direction. Everywhere, so far as the exhaustion of my mind allowed, I 
bore my future vocation about with me, even in the few battles in which we 
took part ; there also I could collect experiences for my future work. Our 
corps marched through the districts of Bremen and Hamburg, Holstein, and 
from there we came finally, in the year 1813, to the Rhine. Peace prevented 
us from seeing Paris. We were stationed in the Netherlands until the break- 
ing up of the corps. At last, in July, 1813, every one who did not wish to 
serve longer, was allowed to return home and to his earlier calling. 

At my entrance to the corps among Prussian soldiers, the promise of an ap- 
pointment in the Prussian state was given me through the intercession of 
honored friends. It was a position as assistant in the miueralogical museum 
of Berlin, under Weiss. Thither I turned my way as to the next place of my 
destiny. I wished to see the Rhine and Main, and also my native country. 
So I went from Dusseldorf back to Luneu, and from there through Maintz, 
Frankfort and Rudolstadt to Berlin. 

I left the army with an utter feeling of dissatisfaction. The inner longing 
for accord and harmony, for inner peace, was so powerful, that it pressed itself 
before me in symbol and form unconsciously. With an inexplicable, anxious 
desire, I passed through many beautiful regions and many gardens on my 
return ; but I was always drawn from them unsatisfied. In Frankfort I vis- 
ited a large garden ornamented with the most varied beauties. I looked at all 
the luxuriant growths and fresh flowers which it offered ; but no blo.ssom 
gave satisfaction to my inner being. When all the manifold beauties of the 
garden entered my soul at a glance, it flashed upon me vividly that I found no 
lily among them. I asked the owner of tlie garden, " Have you no" lilies in 
your garden ■? " He responded quietly, " No." When I expressed my sur- 
prise at that, he told me just as quietly that no one had ever missed them in 
the garden. But I knew, now, what I had missed and sought. How could 
my inner being express it in words more beautifully than thus : You seek 
quiet peace of mind, harmony of life, purity of soul in the image of the quiet, 
pure, simple lily. The garden in its beautiful variety, without a lily, seemed 
to me as the many-colored life passing before me, without unity and har- 
mony. I saw afterwards, in a walk, costly blooming lilies in a country gar- 
den ; but they were separated from me by a hedge. I must especially note 
one thing ; in the place where I saw the lilies in the garden, a three-years' old 
boy trustfully drew near me. 

Assistant in Museum of MirteraJogy. 

The first day of August, 1813, I arrived in Berlin, and immediately received 
the appointment mentioned above. The duties obligatory on me brought me 
in contact, for the greatest part of every day, with minerals, those dumb 
proofs of the quiet, creative activity of nature, and the witnesses of the same. 
Geology and crystallography opened to me a still higher circle of insight and 
perception, and also a h'gher aim for seeking, aspiration, and striving. Nat- 
ure and man seemed to me to explain each other, although in such different 
degrees of development. 

Although Langethal, Middendorff, Bauer, and I had during the whole war 
served not only in the same corps, but also in the same battalion, yet we were 
separated the last of the time, especially when quartered in the Netherlands, so 
that I, at least, at the dismissal of the corps, did not know to what region my 
friends had turned. 



LETTER TO DUKE OF MEININGEN. 47 

Re-union with Middendorff and Langethal. 

So it was an unexpected joy to me when after some time I saw them all 
again iu Berlin. My friends pursued earnestly their theological studies, I, my 
study of nature. So at first there was little contact between us. Thus sped 
several niontlis when life suddenly called us together again. It happened 
through the summons to war in 1815. Together we reported as volunteers. 
According to our earlier position and the will of the king we could enter imme- 
diately as officers. Soon each one of us was assigned to his regiment. 

Such a number of volunteers reported themselves that neither state officers 
had to leave their posts, nor students to break up their studies. For this rea- 
son a counter order admonished us to remain. 

Middendorff, certain of his speedy departure to the army, did not wish to rent 
apartments for the short time of his stay in Berlin, and since mine was sufficient 
for us both, he came to me. 

At first, owing to the different directions of our lives, this seemed to bring 
us not much nearer ; soon a stronger point of union showed itself. Langethal 
and Middendorff, in order to support themselves accepted places in families as 
tutors ; but so that their attendance at tlieir lectures was not shortened. At 
first the work undertaken seemed simple to botli ; but soon they found difficul- 
ties in regard to the instruction as well as the education of the children in- 
trusted to them. 

Our conversation often led us to these subjects, and so they turned to me 
with questions especially in regard to mathematical instruction, and we ap- 
pointed two hours a week in which I imparted instruction to them. From this 
moment the mutual intercourse became active and permanent. 

SUPPLEMENT BY THE EDITOR — W. LANGE. 

Here the account breaks off suddenly. I had to decipher it out of an almost 
illegible manuscript. I do not know whether the letter destined for the Duke 
of Meiningen on the occasion of the negotiation concerning the people's educa- 
tional institution in Helha, was ever brouglit to an end, finislied and sent ; but 
I doubt it. Finally my own introductory account of the efficient activity of 
Froebel in Switzerland gives further information concerning the life of this 
remarka!)le man. 

In 1839, Froebel, accompanied by Middendorff and a Ilerr Frankcnburg, 
went to Dresden and was active there for the establishment of the Kinder- 
garten. After Frankenburg had undertaken a Kindergarten in Dresden, 
Froebel returned to Blankenburg and IVIiddendorff to Keilhau. The friends 
did not separate entirely ; but from time to time Middendorff took a helpful 
and active share iu the efforts at Blankenburg. 

Froebel now summoned a distant relative to him, but could not long con- 
tinue his establishment for pecuniary reasons in spite of the continued support 
from Keilhau. He took refuge again in his mother-institution, without, how- 
ever, any way influencing its direction. In August, 1848, he held a teachers' 
union in Eudolstadt, and laid before it his plan for the education of young cliil- 
dren. Tlie aim of the gathering was attained. He won imiversal approba- 
tion, aud the world of teachers became mindful of his exertions. 

In the autumn of 1848 he went to Dresden again in order to carry on there 
a course for the training of Kindergartners. 

In the spring of 1849 he sought a new abode in Liebenstein. In the fall of 
the same year he was called to Hamburg by a woman's union, after Midden- 



48 LETTEK TO DUKE OF MEIKINGEN. 

dorff shortly before in the institution of the celebrated teacher, Doris Lutkens, 
had made an appeal for Froebel's cause. 

The idea of the Kindergarten quickly took deep root in Hamburg. In the 
spring of 1850, he returned to the hunting-castle, Marienthal, at Liebenstein, 
which the Duke of Meiningen had granted to him at his request for educa- 
tional purposes. He had established here an institution for training Kinder- 
gartners. In July, 1850, he was married for the second time to a pupil, Louise 
Levin. 

In 1852, the German Teachers' General Assembly, meeting in Gotha with 
Theodore Hoffman presiding, invited him to its sessions. At his entrance the 
whole assembly rose as one man, and he had the joy of a universal recognition 
of his efforts. Soon after, these same efforts were banned by the Prussian 
ministry. This ban was the indirect cause of his death. He made the greatest 
exertions day and night to avert the reproach of the unchristian spirit and the 
destructive tendency. The unfinished defense lies before me. I cannot read 
this his last work without emotion. On the twenty-first of July, 1852, death 
caused his pen to rest. 

[Mad. Marenholtz Bulow's Reminiscences of Froebel, supplement this auto- 
biography very satisfactorily. It Avas translated by Mrs. Mann, and pub- 
lished in Boston by Lee & Shepard.] 



FRIEDERICH FROBEL UPON PESTALOZZI. 

Letter to the Princess-Regent of Schwarzbukg-Eudolstadt, 
April 27, 1809. 



MAN AS THE SUBJECT OF EDUCATION. 

Pestalozzi's principles of education and instruction and his pro- 
ceedings, growing out of them, and the means for their application are 
founded entirely upon the phenomena of his existence as a created 
being. 

Man as he is represented to us is a union of three chief attributes; 
body, soul, mind ; to cultivate these harmoniously and as a whole is his 
object. Pestalozzi goes from this existence of man into the phenomena, 
that is, from that which he is by the sum of his powers and according 
to his destiny (its suitable culture). Hence he takes man into consid- 
eration according to this sum of his powers as a bodily, intellectual and 
emotional being, and works upon him in this sum of his powers and for 
their harmonious development and culture, from which first arises 
that whole which is called man. 

Pestalozzi, therefore, works not merely upon the bodily powers and 
their development, not only upon the culture of the mind and its devel- 
opment, nor only upon the soul and its development (although he is 
accused of doing so), nor merely upon two of these at once, as body and 
mind, or body and soul, or soul and mind. No ! Pestalozzi develops 
man, works upon man in the totality of his powers. 

Man in his manifestations must run through three principal epochs, 
according to his powers ; that of the body, that of the soul, that of the 
mind; he runs through them not separated, or singly, so that he first 
runs through that of the body, then that of the soul, and at last that of 
the mind ; no, these epochs are convertible in the man developed in per- 
fectly undisturbed natural relations ; their circular course returns ever 
again, and the more so the more perfect the man becomes — until the 
limits of his powers as well as of their development fall away and are 
removed, and the continuous whole — man — stands before us. 

It would be highly unjust, therefore, to say of Pestalozzi that be de- 
veloped men, the powers of men, each power separately at three differ- 
ent epochs, first the body, then the soul, and then the mind, since he 
really takes them all into view at once in harmonious and brotherly 
union, and although he seems, perhaps, for the time to be treating 
merely the physical powers, he is obsei-ving and taking into considera- 
tion equally the influence of this treatment upon mind and soul. 

He has man as a whole in his eye, as an unseparated and inseparable 
whole, and in all that he does and wishes to do for him and his culti- 
vation, he does it for him as a whole. At no time does he act only for 

4 49 



50 FKOEBEL ON PESTAI.OZZI. 

the development of one power, leaving the others without nourishment; 
for example, he never is acting for the mind alone and leaving uncon- 
sidered, unsatisfied and uncared for and in inaction the body and the 
soul ; all the powers are cared for at all times. 

But often oue or other of the three great divisions of man's nature 
stands forth and apparently dominates the others. 

Pestalozzi takes into view man according to and in his manifestation, 
according to the laws of nature and those which are grounded in the 
mind of man, when he works specially upon the predominant power ; 
it is not done in an isolated and divided way, but in order to work 
through his treatment upon the other equal but slumbering and resting 
powers. So, for example, in one and the same epoch upon the senses, 
through these upon the body, and through these again upon the feel- 
ings, and so in a perpetual round. 

Pestalozzi takes man according to his manifestation. But man does 
not manifest himself alone, for and through himself; he manifests 
himself under conditions determined by nature and by bis mother, and 
both these united — that is, by love. 

So the man becomes child, that is, the sum and substance of the love 
of the father and mother. 

Pestalozzi then wishes to develop and cultivate the man in his mani- 
festation as child, through the conditions under which he appears, that 
is, the love of the father and mother. "We think of the father and 
mother as united by love in order to exalt the child, i. e., the sum of 
their love, into an independent being by means of education. 

Can there be a truer, more careful nurse and developer of this love 
made visible, this independent essence, this child, than the father and 
the mother, than the two united by mutual love, to which the child 
owes his existence — indeed, whose sum and substance the child is ? 

Pestalozzi thus wishes only what nature and the being of man 
wishes ; he wishes that man in his manifestation as child shall be de- 
veloped by his father and mother, and in their mutual love be culti- 
vated throughout and educated according to his capacities as a corporeal, 
feeling and intellectual being. 

MAN IN HIS MANIFESTATION AS A CHILD. 

The existence of mind and soul in the child is expressed merely by 
simple life. 

Mind and soul appear limited by and in the mass, the body — for 
still all parts in the body are one ; the mind and the senses by which 
the world without works through the body upon the mind and soul are 
not yet distinguishable. 

The body of the child is still a mass ; it appears so tender and frail, 
so much too material and awkward for the mind and the soul of the 
child, yet slumbering and weak, to work through it. 

By degrees the senses, feeling, sight, etc., develop and separate. 



FROEBEL ON PESTALOZZI. 51 

The child feels the warmth of the mother's breast and the breath of 
her loving lips ; it smiles (the first appearance of the soul, the first sign 
of the soul's existence). 

The child perceives the mother ; it feels her nearness, her distance, 
etc. ; the child looks (the first appearance of mind — the first sign of its 
existence). 

At the moment of the beginning of this separation of the senses, the 
true mother works upon the unfolding and development of the child 
according to its various capacities ; the love of the mother makes the 
child feel, see, hear. 

Thus are developed, without giving any account of themselves — 
yielding only to holy feeling, to the demands of their nature — the 
senses of the child, which are the paths to its mind and soul. 

Here is the third point, where Pestalozzi takes into account the par- 
ents — where he appeals to them with the view of exalting the being of 
their love to the higher life, to conscious independence — where he gives 
them means and guidance to develop and cultivate the capacities of 
their child. ' 

What Pestalozzi wishes as means of development he had pointed out 
in his Book for Mothers, which many have misunderstood and which 
is yet the highest which can be given to man, the most loving feeling 
could create, the highest and best gift which he could bestow in the 
present circumstances upon his brethren and sisters. 

What Pestalozzi expresses in that book are only suggestions of what 
lies in his soul, as a great, glorious, living and unspeakable whole. 

His soul felt the joys of heaven in his intuition of the perception of 
the father and mother following the call of nature by the education of 
their children. Overpowered by this heavenly joy, he sat down and 
wrote, not for word-catchers and quibblers — no ! he wrote for parents, 
for fathers, for mothers, who he thought would conceive and feel as he 
did, to whom he only needed to point out what they should do, what 
they could do, and how they could do it. 

The highest object of recognition, of the intuition of mind and soul 
to man, is humanity. 

Pestalozzi took pleasure, in his Booh for Mothers, in pointing out to 
man what he wished ; and, in order to point out all that he wished, 
could he choose anything higher and more perfect than man, whose 
body is destined for the earth and whose being is destined for heaven ? 
That he chose the highest, the most perfect thing, is now made a re- 
proach to him ! 

But is there a more glorious, more exalted, more beautiful, more 
worthy object of observation and recognition than man ? — and is not 
the body the house of our spirit, which is destined for eternity and for 
communion with God ? Can it, as he himself says, be contrary to nat- 
ure to learn to know it early, to respect it early, to rejoice in it early, 
that it may be made holy for us ? Can it, as they charge Pestalozzi, 



52 FROEBEL ON PESTALOZZI. 

be contrary to nature to orient one's self early in the house where 
one dwells ? 

As I stand before you, it cannot be my aim to contradict the objec- 
tions of Pestalozzi's opposers, who for the most part misunderstand 
him, since I am merely striving to represent literally the essence of 
Pestalozzi's fundamental efforts according to his own representation ; 
I merely say that a great part of the objections made to these efforts 
consists in this; that Pestalozzi, for various reasons, errs very much 
when he enlists the child himself iu the first cognition and develop- 
ment of himself and the man, and even starts from the body of the 
child. 

But how can it be a crime; how can it be against nature to re- 
spect the body early, to learn early to know the body and its use, the 
use to which we all owe everything, by which alone we learn to know 
the world without, which helps us to sustain and battle for our life, as 
it helps us to recognize God, to do good, and to rescue our brothers and 
sisters with strong arms from the brink of perdition ? 

Ti'uly, whoever wishes to teach the child to respect his body must 
respect himself ; if he wishes to learn to know it, he must know him- 
self ; whoever wishes to instruct in the use of it, must know it himself, 
all this must come to his consciousness ; whoever works to make the 
child feel the sacredness of his body, to himself it must be sacred ! 

Indeed, no man could understand Pestalozzi who had not in his soul, 
when this elementary book first fell into his hands, that which Pesta- 
lozzi felt to be exalted in humanity ; to him those principles were dead 
forms without sense or significance, and afterwards one person, perhaps 
without examination, repeated the judgment of another who seemed to 
him well-informed. 

But were all these men parents to whom Pestalozzi spoke ? Noble 
Princess, if I were not afraid of wearying you, I could say much upon 
the excellence and the principles of Pestalozzi, of the man himself ; I 
only permit myself to express one thing of which I am deeply per- 
suaded in my own mind. 

Many a young man and boy, powerful by the nature of their collec- 
tive capacities, would not have lost his powers in the bloom of his youth, 
if his parents or teachers had followed in his education the principles 
laid down by Pestalozzi in his Book for Mothers. 

Many a young man would have known how to be a useful and esti- 
mable subject, in the years of his ripeness and understanding, if his 
body could have fulfilled the requisitions of his mind and heart. 

Pestalozzi's Booh for Mothers is only a suggestion of what he wishes 
to do ; he wrote significantly ; " or a guide for mothers in the observa- 
tion of their children, and to teach them to speak." 

But man is not the only thing upon earth ; the whole outward world 
is the object of his recognition, and the means for his development and 
culture. 



FROEBEL ON PESTALOZZI. 53 

Pestalozzi said, therefore, and still says : " As I have shown you that 
you can bring man by degrees through gradual developmeut of the 
child to the conscious inspection and recognition of the world without, 
so bring every other object of the world without to his inspection and 
recognition, every object which approaches the child, which lies in his 
circle, in his world, as he himself lies in this world ! " 

Scarcely does it seem possible that herein can lie anything contrary 
to nature, difficult to be recognized, or difficult to be carried out, and 
yet the opponents of Pestalozzi find more than all this in it. Pestalozzi's 
oj)ponents reproach him strongly that he merely speaks of this obser- 
vation and recognition. 

But we observe with all our senses, and how could Pestalozzi believe 
that any one would accuse him, when he used the word observation, of 
meaning simple observation with the eyes ? 

The Book for Mothers is to teach the mother, in the first place, to 
develop and to cultivate the senses of the child both singly and in their 
harmonious united working. In the second place, it is to show how and 
in what natural series of steps, one may bring the objects of the world 
in which he lives to the observation and recognition of the child. In the 
third place, it is to put the mothers and the teachers in a condition to 
teach the child the use and destination of his powers and capacities, 
as well as the use and design of the objects of the world without ; and 
to bring them to his consciousness. 

And in all this they accuse Pestalozzi of expressing one-sided princi- 
ples and methods of instruction, although it is surely impossible to 
fulfill the conditions he requires without developing and cultivating 
man in all the directions of his great powers. 

Others came forward and said, Pestalozzi would have dead words and 
repetitions ; what he gives is dead and therefore killing. Still others 
came forward and said what Pestalozzi wishes the child to know 
should be taught him earlier and better ; they point to the number of 
children's books that have appeared for every age, and for children of 
all conditions ; to the books that have been written on natural history, 
on excursions, journeys, stories and picture books of all kinds, etc. 

By all these means that has not been done which Pestalozzi wishes 
to have done. Everything is given to the child prepared and related^ 
so that his understanding has no work to do. 

The powers of the child's mind are not rendered active and self- 
working. The understanding of the adult has already prepared every- 
thing so that the activity of the child's understanding and recognition 
are left without employment. The consequence of this is weakness 
of mind and especially of the self-acting judgment of the child, and his 
egress out of his own inner world instead of making him at home in it 
and acquainted with it. 

They have also reproached Pestalozzi for the form of his Book for 
Mothers. But when he wrote, it was not his opinion that the father, 



54 FBOEBEL ON PESTALOZZI. 

mother, teacher, whose hand-book he designed it to be, would neces- 
sarily confine himself strictly and anxiously to his representations. He 
strove only to represent what was essential in general, so far as this was 
possible for him to do so, and to touch upon all parts of the whole. 

Some complained in regard to the book that the sequence was not 
logical enough ; bat Pestalozzi wished neither to establish a strong logi- 
cal sequence, nor, still less, to confine the use and application of it. 

What Pestalozzi had really contemplated was in the opinion of others 
too pi'ecise and stiff. 

Although it was hardly possible that Pestalozzi should not begin his 
list of the parts of the human body with the head, he did not say that 
if other parts, the hand for example, should attract the attention of the 
child, it should be withdrawn from that and directed to the head 
because that happened to stand first in the book. Pestalozzi says 
expressly, the peculiar Book for Mothers is the nature of the child in. its 
manifestations. 

I know a mother who has treated her child now two and a quarter 
years old in the spirit of Pestalozzi, and according to his meaning. It 
is delightful and exalting to the heart to see that mother and child. 

And surely the object of that mother's activity, the inner life of her 
soul, could not permit her through her love for her child, indeed, would 
make it impossible for her, to follow to the letter the directions in 
Pestalozzi's book ; yet this mother did not find his writings contrary to 
nature, nor killing to the mind of her child ; no ! It was what Pesta- 
lozzi wished that she comprehended in her inmost soul. It is a joy to 
see that child with his angelic voice, his childlike innocence, and his 
love not only for his mother, but for everything that surrounds him. 

It is the highest enjoyment to see how at home the child is in his 
world, how continually active and occupied he is in it. He stands now 
at a higher point of knowledge and acquaintance with the world around 
him, but uninjured in his innocent childishness. 

This child lives a gentle inner life ; he rejoices inwardly in awaken- 
ing nature, and seizes everything with attention that strikes his senses 
which his early awakened powers of body and mind make easily pos- 
sible to him. The mother followed Pestalozzi ; what she did she did by 
following his meaning. It is not possible in the working of these prin- 
ciples to see the limits of the culture of body, soul and mind. 

Often and willingly has this mother said, who always strove to do her 
duty before she knew of Pestalozzi, that from Pestalozzi she had 
learned how to be a mother. 

Pestalozzi's Book for Mothers would have been miich less unjustly 
judged if the second part had yet appeared. It is still wanting, alas f 
Pestalozzi has not expressed his idea fully in its application ; this is an 
important view which every one should take before forming a judgment. 

As much and even more should be taken into consideration in judg- 
ing of the book, is that what Pestalozzi wishes is not limited to the 



FKOEBEL ON PESTALOZZI. 55 

time when the faculty of speech appears in the child, or even when it 
actually begins to speak ; no ! it begins in the working and apx^lication 
at the moment when the child perceives outward impressions decid- 
edly, that is, discriminates between light and darkness. The mother 
must already have taught the child to observe everything, to separate 
everything which comes within the circle of his life, before the peculiar 
moment of time when the development of language begins. 

I know children so treated who were a year and a half old before they 
began to speak, but who could discriminate between all things that 
immediately surrounded them, and appeared to have distinct and quite 
significant conceptions of everything. If the child has been so treated 
it has the very essential and useful advantage, when it does begin to 
speak, of knowing, well the objects it is about to name, and hence needs 
not to divide its powers but can apply them unitedly in the naming of 
them. It can now make important progress in speaking, and this is 
really the case with such children. 

The Boot for Mothers first gave a guide for teaching the child to 
observe that language is the medium of sympathy. 

The mother must work according to nature, at the same time upon 
the child's capacity for language and its development. To elevate the 
social life between mother, father and child, the mother widens the 
child's power of language. The father, the mother, the members of 
the family, now teach the child the meaning of the language they speak, 
that they may mutually understand each other more easily, and sympa- 
thize about everything that surrounds them. 

But Pestalozzi not only wishes that everything that happens uncon- 
sciously shall be brought to the consciousness, that that which has hap- 
pened shall not be left to chance, but that it shall happen consecutively, 
all-sidedly and comprehensively, and in conformity with the developing 
progress of the child. 

The meaning of language which Pestalozzi now wishes to have the 
child learn is the meaning of it in the closest sense, the special mean- 
ing ; for only from the knowledge of the particular and individual 
thing can man rise to the knowledge and command of the universal. 

The child is taught then the meaning of every single word, every sin- 
gle expression. The manner in which this is done lies darkly in the 
demands of human nature, but the Book for Mothers gives this guidance 
in the first place. 

According to Pestalozzi the child is now to learn by observation, for 
example, the meaning of contrasted words which it either hears or even 
speaks already intelligibly ; as dark, bright; heavy, light; black, white; 
transparent, opaque ; there, here ; furniture, tool ; animal, stone ; go, 
sit ; run, creep ; coarse, fine ; more, less ; one, many ; living, dead ; 
prick, cut, etc. Pestalozzi here shows particularly how contrast, which 
he always designates as to be found in every conception, is specially 
cultivating. 



56 FEOEBEL ON PESTALOZZI, 

Thus far the mother has developed the child's capacity of language 
according to Pestalozzi's method ; she has taught it to speak. But now 
before she carries it farther, she and other members of her family 
must cultivate this capacity. 

Tlie speaking of the child rises by degrees to connected language. 
The child knows and raises itself to a determined knowledge of the 
meaning of all that it speaks. 

By all that the mother has hitherto done for the child, it is now in a 
condition to know precisely the objects with which it is surrounded, to 
observe them singly, to separate them from each other. Its power to 
observe is perfectly awakened, and in full activity. The circle of its 
knowledge widens as its world widens ; it accompanies its mother 
wherever her employments call her. It is continually led to know more 
objects of the surrounding world. The objects themselves stand forth 
more and more prominently. 

It recognizes intelligibly what was hitherto unknown and unsepa- 
rated, and still lies partly so, and will continue to be more or less so un- 
til it consciously surveys a fixed portion of the outward world, and free 
and independent of that world, can again create and represent it. 

To raise the child to this perfectly conscious recognition of the out- 
ward world, must hence be the object of its mother's striving. The 
glorious kingdom of nature now opens by degrees to the child ; led by 
its mother's hand it enters tliat glorious kingdom. Nature is now its 
world ; the child creates nature from its world. 

A hundred little stones, a hundred little plants, flowers, leaves, a hun- 
dred little animals, innumerable objects of nature accompany its steps ; 
its heart beats loudly. It finds friends, it carries about and takes care 
of objects ; but it does not know why it is happy, why it carries about 
and takes care of these objects, why its heart beats so loudly. Should 
these impressions be allowed to vanish without having been firmly 
retained ? 

According to Pestalozzi, the mother now teaches the child to perceive 
these objects on all sides, to recognize all their qualities, that is, with 
the help of all their senses ; she teaches it to use its observation upon 
the whole aspect of them, and to give an account of them to others. 

The child now holds firm points to which it can fasten its joy, — 
sound, motion, shape, form, smoothness, etc. It sees the connection of 
these qualities and a hundred others to qualities partly determinable, or 
merely supposable ; so that the child is now first conscious of its joy. 

How happy is the child novv^ whom its mother has made conscious of 
all these impressions, so that he possesses a firm point by which the 
outward world stands in contact with him, so that he does not remain 
in the dark with his heart oppressed with feeling ; so that he does not 
wander in a mist like the traveler who journeys through a pleasing 
country on a spring morning when nature is partly wrapped in vapor, 
and shows him the light that gleams through it, promising a delightful 

% 



FROEBEL ON PESTALOZZI. 57 

view. As man longingly waits for the dispersion of the mist by the 
rays of the sun, so that the objects of nature may appear in light and 
clearness, so the child waits for the guidance of the loving mother who 
will explain to him the rapture of his heart and show him why he re- 
joices in anticipation. 

What a calling for the mother ! She teaches the child to become 
conscious of his joys, of the objects of his delight ; she teaches it how 
to give an account of all it sees and feels, to express it in words and to 
share it with others. 

The mother thus raises the child into a creature of intelligence and 
feeling ; she teaches him the qualities of objects ; she listens to every 
remark, every discovery, every word of her child ; she rejoices when he 
rejoices; she receives his love and sympathy in her own breast, she 
reciprocates it and guides it with delight. 

As the nature of the child receives life and significance thus, so the lan- 
guage which the child, the mother, the father, the family speaks, receives 
life and significance. Every word becomes an object, an impression, a 
picture ; to every word the child joins a world, a cycle of impressions ; 
he goes in his remarks upon the qualities of things, from the easier to 
the more difficult, from the simple to the complex ; he loves to seek and 
find it all himself; "Dear mother, let me find it myself," he says. 
Often have I with joy and light-heartedness heard children make this 
prayer with shining, sparkling eyes 1 

Later, the mother leads her child to classifying similar things (which 
it tends to do of itself ) and to discriminating between different things ; 
thus the child learns to compare what it sees. 

The child besides observing, also imitates. Imitation betters and 
perfects his observations. The mother not only allows this imitation, 
she not only rejoices in it, but she aids it. 

The child likes above all things to imitate the sound which it has 
evoked from some inanimate object perhaps, or which it seems to him 
to produce. It tries to imitate the sound'of everything, falling, jump- 
ing, breathing, moving. All the objects of nature, animate and inani- 
mate, seem to emit sounds ; they speak audibly to him. The mother 
rejoices in the child's delight when in the spring it imitates the sounds 
of nature, and she challenges him to do it ; she does it unconsciously 
when her impulse to do it is not disturbed. Who has not seen a poor 
mother playing with her child or heard her say, " What does the sheep 
do? What does the dog say, the ox, the bird?" The child's imita- 
tions increase ; it imitates the twittering of the bird, and thus its own 
human tone is awakened. 

If the mother sings, and accompanies the song of the birds with her 
human tones, he will imitate this, and thus will not only his feeling be 
awakened for the highest human expression, song, but his whole being 
is exalted, from the humming of the bees to the representation of his 
own feelings by simple, connected and varied human tones. 



58 FEOEBEL ON PESTALOZZI. 

The outward world is now no longer to the child, guided by Pestalozzi'g 
method, the chaotic, confused, misty mass, which it was earlier. 1. It 
is now individualized. 2. What is separated it can name. 3. It can 
seize it at a glance independent of other relations, and according to its 
relation to himself and to others. 4. It can designate what it observes 
and all its relations by language ; it can speak and knows the meaning 
of the language of its parents. 5. It knows an object not only on one 
side but on several sides. 6. It can take an object in at a glance in 
many relations. 7. It can compare one object with another and recog- 
nize tlie peculiar qualities of each. 

Ideas of Number. 

The first general quality of objects is their computability. Objects 
are now individually separated to the child's mind, consequently follow- 
ing each other in time and thus appear computable. 

The mother now teaches her child to recognize the computability of 
objects, and to separate the qualities and relations of computable objects 
in nature, with real objects before it, and not first by counting in an 
abstract manner. 

By the exercises arranged by Pestalozzi the mother brings to the 
consciousness of the child something which hitherto was merely an 
obscure presentiment, scarcely a conscious feeling ; she brings the con- 
ception of number, the precise knowledge of the qualities and relations 
of the computable, to his clear, intelligible consciousness. 

The mother teaches the child thatTane stone and again one stone are 
two stones, etc. 

Farther, she teaches him to know the value of numbers by the oppo- 
site process, for example, ten nuts less one nut are nine nuts. 
. Already this little exei'cise has brought conversation to life between 
mother and child, when, for example, in the first case, she says to the 
child, " Lay down two flowers and one flower ; how many flowers have 
you ? how many times one • flower have you ? how many times two 
flowers have you?" etc. 

Or, in the second case, for the solving of numbers, she says to the 
child, " Put away one of your six beans ; now how many have you ? 
how many times one bean have you still ? " 

The mother goes a step farther ; she nov/ lets him add two, three and 
four ; for example : " One stone and two stones are three stones." 

The child learns by observation that 5 are 5 times 1, are 4 and 1, and 
3 and 2. 

Or, 1 and 3 are 4, 4 and 3 are 7, 7 and 3 are 10 objects. 

The mother then goes backwards over the same ground. For exam- 
ple : if you take 2 from 15, 13 remain. 

Questions enliven and elevate conversation between the mother and 
child. 

The mother may work in the field or in the house ; the child sits near 



FKOEBEL ON PESTAJLOZZI. 59 

and plays with stones or flowers. The mother asks : " When you put 
2 flowers to 1, how many have you?" 

All this is play to the child ; it handles its favorite objects ; it moves 
them about, and sees a purpose in doing it, for in all its plays the child 
gives itself a problem. The child is with its mother, so it is happy, 
and its mind and feelings are awakened. 

When the child knows how to count in these different ways, and 
knows the qualities of numbers thus represented, it will soon find that 
the pea leaf has 2 times 2 little leaves, and the rose leaf 2 times 3 little 
leaves. A hint to the mother, and she carries her child still another 
step in the knowledge of computation. The child has several single 
objects around it. "Place your little blocks," the mother says, "so 
that 2 will lie in every heap. Have you done it ? Count how many 
times 2 you have." The child will count : " I have 2 times 2, 3 times 2, 
or I have 1 time 2;" or it will say perhaps a little later, "I have 1 
two heap ; 2 two heaps," etc. 

The mother goes farther and says : " Place your things so that 3 or 4 
or 5 will lie together, and tell me how many times 3 or 4 or 5, etc., you 
have." [She selects one of these numbers, of course. We omit many 
similar exercises in numbers now familiar to kindergartners.] 

Form. 

So Pestalozzi would have the mother teach the child form in its play. 

" Here is a lath — it is straight ; here is a branch — it is crooked." 
The child remarks the laths on the fence, the prongs on the rake ; they 
are at equal distances from each other. His mother tells him they are 
parallel. The ribs on the leaf of the large plantain unite in a point; 
they are radiating. The child goes into the woods with its mother ; it 
sees the fir trees and the pines, it is pleased with the variety ; and it 
knows how to describe it. The needles of the fir tree are parallel, those - 
of the pine unite in a point. 

The child observes the relations of the branches to the stem. Its 
mother has taught it to observe angles. The branches and the stems 
form angles, but these joinings of branch and stem make in one tree 
quite a different impression upon the child from those in another tree. 
How delighted it now is to recognize this variety, so that it has a firm 
point to which it can fasten its impressions. It is the greater or less 
inclination of the branch to the stem. So in the surroundings in nature, 
which is its world it recognizes, led by its mother, it sees 3 or 4, or 
many cornered forms. The intersection of the hemlock twig forms a 
regular pentagonal (or five corners). The mother leads the child to a 
regular comparison of this form and to seek its variety. 

The child will soon pluck leaves and find other objects in view of their 
forms, and with childish critical senses will separate them from the ob- 
jects to which they belong. He will go farther than I venture to describe. 

" See, mother, what round leaves I have found," and the child shows 



60 FKOEBEL ON PESTALOZZI. 

the mother many such leaves, of larger and smaller sizes, which he has 
picked. " See how little this one is, and how big this one is ! " he thus 
leads himself to the contemplation of size. A hint, a word from the 
mother, and the child has received a new item of culture. 

lie selects three leaves, lays them upon each other, and says : " That 
is the largest leaf, that is smaller, but that is the smallest." 

" Mother, look at this long stalk. The stalk of the flax is only half 
as long," he will perhaps say, if he has learned the meaning of the 
word half. Or, after the mother has laid the flax upon the corn stalk, 
he will say, " this is 2 times as long," or perhaps as long again as that 
one, or he breaks a pear leaf in the middle, lengthwise, and finds both 
halves equally long; perhaps he cannot describe what he finds and his 
mother tells him that these two parts of a whole are called halves, and 
thus widens the circle of his knowledge again. 

Pestalozzi wishes to make known intelligibly in small things the at- 
tributes of form as well as the recognition of the foundation of its 
qualities. 

The child will lead on the attentive mother and father still farther. 

Tlie child will soon come to the consideration of large equal objects 
in comparison with large unequal objects ; he will find that a part is 
smaller than the whole, the whole is larger than a part. 

Objects of nature as well as of art will lead the child to this com- 
parison. 

Everything in his circle, in his world, will thus become means of in- 
formation, material for development. 

If the child is in its earliest years where the mother is, and rightly 
guided, it costs but a suggestion from her and it can busy itself many 
hours. 

It accumulates objects, arranges and investigates them ; it is quiet 
and happy. 

One will scarcely realize that the child is occupied, and yet the powers 
of its soul and mind are coming forward and developing themselves by 
practice. 

In this way all the capacities and powers of the child are now devel- 
oped according to Pestalozzi's method ; his senses cultivated, his inner 
and outer being exalted to true life ; he errs no more unconsciously as 
one enveloped in mist ; the way is open for evei-y kind of knowledge, 
every shade of feeling. Sympathy, that beautiful attribute of man, is 
possible to him in its whole scope ; his language is formed. 

With deepest love he hangs upon the glance of his mother, his father 
— the parents to whom he owes all this joy. 

All which has thus far been done by the mother was the object of the 
Book for Mothers, and suggested by it ; at least this is what Pestalozzi 
wished for as belonging to the calling of the mother. 

Pestalozzi wishes that the child shall live in this manner seven happy, 
delightful years. 



FKOEBEL ON PESTALOZZI. 61 

The child has now, thus guided, received its culture through the 
mother, for what is now in the child, what now transports it will always 
live in it, will give value to its life, dignity to its being. Slie now sur- 
renders it fully prepared to the father, the parental teacher, or to his 
representative, the school-master, for definite instruction, definite 
teaching. 

The instruction which the father or school-master will now give to 
the child will join on where the mother ended. 

The child should find no other difference between this teaching and 
that of its mother ; now every object stands singly, all iustruction has 
a determined time. The manner of handling the subjects of instruc- 
tion must be in harmony with that of its mother. 

Man as a Scholar. 

[The next division of this article upon Pestalozzi is entitled Man as 
A Scholar, and in it Frobel describes minutely Pestalozzi's mode of 
teaching everything :] 

Language — the mother tongue in reference to its meaning, the formal 
part of language ; descriptions of nature, of the products of art, of the 
earth's surface. Second course of geographical instruction, the knowl- 
edge of numbers, forms, size, singing, drawing (Schmidt's method), 
reading, writing. 

This instruction is not given from books, but from life, observation 
of nature, walks, examination of works of art and use, etc., etc. 

INTRODUCTION OF THIS METHOD INTO THE SCHOOLS. 

The demands which Pestalozzi makes upon the teacher are simple and 
natural ; they are founded in the nature of the teacher as well as in the 
nature of the scholar. Therefore they will be intelligible and easy of 
execution and representation to every teacher, even the country school- 
teacher, who can unite good will with power and understanding, as soon 
as he has suitably prepared himself in the method. It is the same with 
the subjects which Pestalozzi wishes to have taught. They go from 
the simple, their march is connected in a determined sequence lying in 
the nature of every subject of instruction. If the teacher has been 
taught only i\\e first point, the nature and essence of his subject, through 
observation in his own practice, he can not only proceed easily according 
to the demand of that subject, but even instruct the scholar in it con- 
secutively. 

The teacher with good will and the impulse to perfect himself (and 
upon what teacher who wishes to perfect others would not this requisi- 
tion be made ?) will very soon perceive with the utmost joy the glorious 
effects of the Pestalozzian method upon himself; he will find it 
grounded in his nature. The Pestalozzian principles will thus become 
his own ; they will flow into his whole life ; and thus he will express it 
with mind, love, warmth, life and freedom in all his acts, and instruct 



62 FROEBEL ON PESTALOZZI. 

and represent it to his scholars according to their needs, as to his own 
children and brethren. 

There would be few difficulties in introducing Pestalozzi's method 
into the schools, if teachers, and those who feel it their destiny to be 
such, should make themselves familiar at his institution with his princi- 
ples, and should acquire the readiness and dexterity in applying them, 
which they could do on the spot. Supposing that they know and honor 
the duties and demands of their calling, strive to fulfill them with all 
their power, and, thinking for themselves, not act mechanically, their 
efforts would be facilitated by the Pestalozzian method ; in the fii'st 
place because it corresponds to their natures as well as to that of their 
pupils, and again because its workings will fill them and their pupils 
with inward joy and exhilarating pleasure ; it would enable them to 
fulfill their calling not only with love and joy, but with power and 
enthusiasm. They will not be behindhand in their own self-perfecting 
when they teach their scholars, even the lowly among the people, even 
the preliminary points of every subject ; they will have the opportunity 
for thought whereby their own minds will be farther developed. Their 
human hearts, their loving souls, will be filled with nourishment. They 
will never be machines even when they are teaching the simplest thing ; 
for they will never depend upon arbitrarily given rules, followed every 
day regularly without farther thought. Indeed, if they wish to teach 
according to Pestalozzi's principles, it will be necessary to think, so that 
what they teach will be living and active in itself, and be presented 
livingly and glowingly so as to awaken life and activity in others. 

By their knowledge of this method, the teachers, in order to under- 
stand its introduction, will make it not only possible to fulfill their duty 
far more comprehensively and better than before, but will find their 
work much facilitated by it, for by its conformity to nature it bears 
within itself the quality that every advanced scholar will be able to 
teach and instruct others. Very essential and many-sided advantages 
will arise out of this to both scholars and schools. 

1. All the scholars will be, according to their needs and at all times, 
employed under a teacher, will be always under inspection, and never 
left to themselves or to indolence, a thing so common in schools, but 
will be at all times engaged in their development and culture. 

2. For the instructed and assistant pupils will themselves penetrants 
deeper into the method, and hence be better able to comprehend the 
teaching they will receive. Their power of thought and judgment will 
be in continual exercise, their feelings and souls will have the opportu- 
nity to practice love and ready service, and thus, while upon one side 
their understandings will be cultivated, on the other they will rise to 
practical humanity. The school itself will thus be sustained like a 
family, the teacher of which is the father, the pupils of which are the 
children ; these will be like brothers and sisters of the same family, in 
which the weaker will be sustained by the stronger. 



FKOEBEL ON PESTALOZZI. 63 

Whose heart does not beat quickly to see the schools of his beloved 
fatherland thus exalted ? 

The assistant teacher will receive thus the most highly essential 
advantage ; he must never weaken his powers by frittering them away, 
that he may always be able to devote them wholly to the department 
taught by him. 

The school receives this essential advantage — that unity reigns in the 
whole instruction. So much more important progress will the pupils 
make. The school can thus naturally answer perfectly to the demands 
of the parents, the children always be suitably and directly employed, 
and all things work together for their culture. 

The instruction will thus gain in life, interest and variety by every 
class of the pupils being occupied specially and particularly according 
to their ages. 

If we were to take into consideration the wants of the people in the 
arrangement and application of subjects of instruction in the people's 
schools and the country schools, a teacher in a country or village school, 
supported by some of his most capable pupils, could fulfill the demands 
of Pestalozzi for eighty or more scholars by seven hours of daily in- 
struction (two afternoons being excepted). 

Since the child is first capable at eight years of age of being treated 
as a scholar, according to Pestalozzi's principles, if hitherto but little 
has been done for his development by his parents and his mother, a 
fixed time, to fall between the sixth and seventh year, must be arranged 
by local conditions to receive him into the school in order to supply 
what the first education at home has neglected. 

Therefore at first all the children who go to the school will be divided 
into two principal classes or divisions. 

The first division will constitute the children's class, and these pupils 
will be under eight years of age. The manner of their treatment will 
be determined by their age, for they are children in the narrow sense 
of the word ; they have not emerged from the circle determined by the 
foregoing representation of the Book for Mothers. 

The second division will consist of the school classes, and the pupils 
will be from eight years up to the age in which they usually leave school. 
The manner of their treatment is determined by Pestalozzi's method of 
instruction. 

This second division must be divided again into two parts ; into the 
lower class in which the pupils are at all events from eight to eleven 
years old, and the upper class which contains the pupils from eleven 
years of age to the end of the school time. The whole school would be 
divided then into three classes ; the first or child's class ; the second or 
lower school class ; the third or upper school class. 

According to this division of the classes the following subjects of 
instruction are possible : 

The second class could receive two hours' instruction in the descrip- 



64 FROEBEL ON PESTALOZZI. 

tion of nature ; tlie third class two hours in natural history. In this 
"way the pupils become acquainted not only with the greater part of the 
natural products of their fatherland, particularly of the region in which 
they live, but also of the foreign natural products of essential impor- 
tance to that region. 

The second class could devote two hours in the week to the descrip- 
tion of products of art; the third class two hours to technology. And 
here what is essential to the pupils in the circle in which they live is 
alone necessary. . 

Then two hours of description of the earth for the second class, and 
two hours of knowledge of different countries. The second class could 
give one of these hours in the middle of the week to a walk. Thus 
they would learn to know Germany (its physical limits) and especially 
the Thuringian valley accurately, and have a general view of Europe. 

In the description of other countries, they are taught the products of 
nature and art in each country, the manner of life and system of gov- 
ernment of the inhabitants, and the relations of every land and of the 
inhabitants of each to the territories in which they live. 

The fatherland of the pupils stands first in importance in all these 
three topics. 

The second class can have six hours of arithmetic. The third class 
also six hours of the same. In the second class it will be chiefly men- 
tal arithmetic, in the third class chiefly ciphering or written arithmetic 
(on the slate). 

The second class can have four hours upon the theory of forms and 
drawing ; the third class four hours in geometry and drawing. To fix 
more sharply the relation of the hours for arithmetic, theory of forms, 
geometry and drawing, a part should be precise local knowledge, a part 
dependent upon what knowledge the pupils of the child's class in the 
lower school class already have. 

The second class can have six hours of reading and mother tongue ; 
the third class four hours of the formal theory of language. 

The exercises in beautiful handwriting can be connected afterwards 
with grammatical exercises. 

The third class needs neither special hours for reading or writing, 
because the pupils have been firmly grounded in these before they 
passed into the third class. To practice and cultivate themselves more 
in both, they find sufficient opportunity in writing upon the other topics. 

The second class can have three hours in singing, and the third class 
the same. 

Lastly, the second class can have six hours of religious instruction, 
and the third class nine hours. In the third class this consists of the 
reports of the preaching, passages of scripture and songs ; in the recita- 
tion of Bible texts and songs, not only in the words but in the significa- 
tion which the pupil has given to both. 

The particulars of the instruction in the first or child's class I pass 



FROEBEL ON PESTALOZZI. 65 

over, since the subjects, as well as their treatment, are designated in the 
way in which they are represented. 

In no other than the Pestalozzian method can the child be employed 
in such a variety of ways, or in so few hours could such a goal be 
reached on every topic. 

According to Pestalozzi's meaning and principles, no topic should 
stand isolated ; only in organic union do they lead to the desired goal, 
which is the cultivation and education of the child and pupil. 

This suggestion for the assignment of hours and subjects is only 
made for the country schools ; for the city schools, there are generally 
three regular teachers for greater p»erfection of instruction. 

But the organization of a school according to Pestalozzi's principles 
makes two essential requisitions ; first, that the children of the school 
age can only be received into the school at two fixed seasons ; and that 
all school children, except in the vacations, shall come to school punctu- 
ally and uninterruptedly. If a single hour is neglected by the papil, it 
is never possible to make it wholly up without great disadvantage to 
his companions in that topic, since this method makes a steady advance 
and is characterized by a continuous progress. 

All the faults which hitherto may be found in country and city 
schools are prevented by the introduction of this method. 

Order, permanent and spontaneous occupation, taking into account 
both mind and character, gradual progress in culture, living and funda- 
mental knowledge in the pupil, love, true love of it on his part, love for 
the school and for the teacher, contempt for all superficial knowledge 
in the schools of all kinds, or among the people. These are the essen- 
tial consequences of schools directed on Pestalozzi's jirinciples. 

To every one who relies upon the school for his circle of knowledge, 
he has marked out the path for perfecting and ennobling himself. 

Love for teachers and companions, parents and family, will in riper 
age become a more exalted love of country, deep reverence for the 
princes who are to be regarded as superior fathers. 

The many-sided practical power, the strength of mind and body he 
has acquired, will make it possible for every one so trained to act not 
only with power for the welfare of his own family, but to be an actively 
working subject for the good of the people. 

Simplicity, contentment with his condition of firm independence of 
character, thoughtful action, the promotion of family and public happi- 
ness, practical virtue, true religion, wiU characterize the citizens edu- 
cated according to Pestalozzi's method. 

Upon the Possibility of introducing Pestalozzi^s Method among the Mothers 
and Parents of the People, for the Natural Education and Treatment of 
their Children up to the Sixth Year. 

Even the introduction of Pestalozzi's method into the families is not 
so difficult as it is thought to be, for every mother loves her child, haa 



66 FROEBEL ON PESTALOZZI. 

hiiii with her most of the time up to a certain age, and willingly con- 
verses and occupies herself with him. 

It needs little guidance, therefore, even of the uncultivated mother, 
in order to teach her how to treat her child according to its nature and 
to lead it farther on than usual ; it depends upon how this guidance is 
given to her. 

Mere words will work quite in a contrary way, but every mother 
likes to have people interested in her child. 

Could these dispositions of the mother be used to give her confidence 
in Pestalozzi's method so that she could converse with her child and 
occupy herself with it in an intelligent manner, one might so interest 
the mother herself in it that she would soon perceive the benefit and 
joy of the child in her occupation with it ; while she occupies herself 
with the child she cultivates herself also. 

But what is thus naturally given must not go beyond her power of 
conception and representation. The more simple, easy and comprehen- 
sible what is given her the better. And what country teacher or 
country clergyman has not often an opportunity so to influence parents 
and child I 

If even but little can be effected, what is really essential might be 
done by a country teacher or pastor, Vi'ith the help of a few members of 
the community, to spread the knowledge of a better nurture of little 
children, one more conformable to nature. By the direction of the 
schools according to the principles of Pestalozzi, where the older and 
more advanced pupils teach the more backward ones, the introduction 
and generalizing of the above mentioned treatment of the children 
would surely be possible, and made far easier because the older mem- 
bers of families are so often left in charge of the younger ones by their 
parents. 

By such direction of the schools, these representatives of the parents 
may receive the material with which they can develop and cultivate 
their little brothers and sisters by occupying them happily. How 
many evils which so often are inflicted upon children might be averted 
in this way ! 

The child so guided will never give itself by way of pastime to evil 
habits ; it will become accustomed early to a proper way of thinking 
and feeling and will then never have any pleasure in idleness. The 
number of children deserving of compassion who run about under the 
name of " blackguards " and do not know what to do with their time, 
would vanish out of sight under this influence. All would strive con- 
sciously and unconsciously for the high aim of becoming productive 
and estimable citizens, and of protecting those who are weaker in their 
endeavors to seek the same goal. 

Honored princess, linger a moment over this picture ; find in it the 
happiness which this method will spread abroad over all conditions of 
men. 



FROEBEL ON PESTALOZZI. 67 

And how much more glorious would be the effect of such schools, 
when the pupil jouth so guided shall become a father, and the young 
woman educated on these principles shall once be a mother. She will 
be a true mother ; unconsciously and without farther guidance she will 
impart to her child what is in herself ; she will naturally treat and edu- 
cate her child according to Pestalozzi. Capable young people who feel 
the calling within themselves can thus cultivate themselves for still 
higher work, and be useful whether as husbands or fatliers by their 
information, counsel and acts. 

Let them unite with some others of the community who are most 
active for its welfare ; let them use this spirit to do good with. 

On Sundays and feast days let them come together, if only a few, to 
gather the youths and maidens around them ; let them invite some of 
the fathers and mothers to make it more agreeable. 

Let the knowledge of the world and of nature be the subject of their 
conversation, not formally or discursively ; no, let it proceed from their 
own observation and examination how they as well as children learn to 
occupy themselves from the simplest thing to the most complex. At 
least let the possibility of the introduction of the Pestalozzian method 
among the people be shown. By its introduction to the schools its in- 
fluence among the people will be so much the more secure and rich iu 
consequences. 

Upon the Connection of the Elementary Instruction of Pestalozzi with 
higher Scientific Instruction. 

The series of elementary instruction continues uninterruptedly into 
the higher and scientific. 

To represent this progress in detail would carry me too far. Permit 
me simply to indicate the connection. 

Language retains as higher scientific construction both the directions 
it had taken as elementary instruction. 

In one direction, and indeed formally, it rises to the philosophy of 
language (form is here taken in a wider sense) ; in the other direction 
it rises to scientific and artistic representation. 

Classification or system proceeds from the description of nature 
directly, according to one direction ; according to the other, the history 
of the products of nature. 

Both run parallel. As the description of nature rises to individual 
classification, so from natural history proceeds the individual histories 
of the species. 

The description of the surface of the earth becomes in uninterrupted 
sequence the history of the earth's surface ; afterwards it necessarily 
blends with ancient geography. Since the old geography proceeds 
according to its elements from the highest point of the earth's sur- 
face, this determines the biblical geography to be the beginning of this 
topic. 



68 FKOEBEL ON PESTALOZZI. 

Description of men becomes anthropology, physiology and psychol- 
ogy (which must come out of history and through which, jfirst receives 
here its true meaning) and at last human history. Here first comes 
the history of individual men, then their history as fathers of families, 
then the history of the whole family of the people and the nation. 

Only biblical history corresponds to this natural continuous progress, 
since it ascends from t.he individual to the whole, therefore the begin- 
ning would be made with it ; in it lies the starting point for farther 
progress. Here comes in the study and learning of the ancient lan- 
guages. History and ancient geography now run parallel. 

The introduction of the Pestalozzian method of instruction in geog- 
raphy is highly essential to the study of ancient geography. 

Arithmetic develops without a break into the mathematics of abstract 
computable quantities in all its branches. • 

Geometry develops in a similar uninterrupted succession into the 
mathematics of fixed magnitudes in its whole extent and all its subdi- 
visions. Knowledge of the elementary powers of nature develops into 
natural history in the wider sense and in all its compass. 

The description of the products of art becomes the history of the 
products of art in its greatest range. 

Elementary drawing rises to drawing as an art and proceeds to plas- 
tic representation of different kinds. 

The theory of form according to its essence must stand in a higher 
contact with the aesthetic ; their connection is not yet found. 

Song rises to art and founds instrumental music in its various forms. 

Thus, according to Pestalozzi, the whole is carried out till all these 
sciences and arts meet again in one point from which they all issued — 
Man. 

The first of this encounter is Philosophy ; to recognize it makes the 
scholar a learned man. When he finds himself at this point, he may 
determine by himself the direction and aim of his life with clearness 
and true consciousness. 

And thus the Pestalozzian method sets man forth on his endless path 
of development and culture on the way to knowledge, bound to no time 
and no space, a development to which there is no limit, no hindrance, 
no bounds ! A. Froebel. 



LANGE'S REMINISCENCES OF FROEBEL. 

Abridged from Dr. Lange's " For the Understanding of Frxbel,^ by Mrs. Mabt Manit. 



TRCEBEL AT HAMBURG. 

WiCHARD Lange says of Froebel, whom he saw for the first time in 
1849, on the evening when he met the ladies of a Hamburg society who 
had invited him to visit them and speak of the Kindergarten, — " Out of 
the single thoughts of Froebel one soon sees, as I saw that evening, that 
the question 'How can one contribute to the happiness of mankind? ' had 
attained in his mind what might be described as a fearful intensity. In 
every motion, in every word, in every gleam of his eye, the burning 
desire betrayed itself to further the happiness of his race. The essence of 
humanity is God-like; it consists in thinking, living, and willing. The 
aim of all life is to live. In the reaching of this aim lies happiness. 
Everything is happy that truly lives, that is, that exists according to its 
inner nature. This purpose impelled Froebel to all his efforts. What 
lives must develop itself; development is life; the cessation of develop- 
ment is death. In unintelligent creatures development is 'tlie necessity of 
nature, but where there is understanding this necessity becomes freedom, 
for man can hinder or further his own development at will. The funda- 
mental idea of Froebel is to educate man to freedom. He who can develop 
himself unhindered is happy, is free. A people to whom this possibility 
is given may be called a happy and free people. To make the individual 
free he must be brought to a freedom of development in which he is in a i 
condition to clear away all hindrances from his i^ath. But thi^ is only 
possible through education. ' My investigation has cost me much 
trouble, much expense, many plans,' said the old man to the ladies. '!■ 
have had to wrestle, aye, to fight, and my associates in the work have put the 
greatest hindrances in my way. A correct estimate of the subject was pos- 
sible only to a Diesterweg. The teachers of Meiningen thought Diester- 
weg could describe my cause in six lines; but who knows how manyi 
times six lines he has written upon it!'* 'Now,' he added with much 
emotion, ' I hope to be able to contribute to the welfare of mankind. If' 
I had not faith that I can do it, I should have found it difficult to come to( 
Hamburg. I should have preferred an easier life in my narrower home. ' 
Stimulated by sympathetic expressions, such as that of Herr Traun, who 
regretted that he had not made his acquaintance ten years before, he grew ' 
more and more eloquent, and let his attentive audience look deeper and 
deeper into his thoughts. ' That man must of necessity be brought into thai 
path of development, and that education is necessary for this, he spoke of 
as self-evident. As it is the problem of the world's spirit to conquer and 

* Deisterweg'* first notice of Froebel appeared in the Jdhlbach in 1851, which was fol- 
lowed up by frequent and full descriptions In the Bhine Blutter. 



70 LANGE'S REMINISCENCES OF FROEBEL. 

explain matter, so it is the problem of the individual spirit to make all' 
phenomena, even all obstacles, serviceable to the aim of his own develop- 
ment in the arena of life. For this is necessary an exalted enthusiasm for 
the God-like and noble, a developed intelligence, pleasure in thinking, and 
a will full of the germs of life. The aspiration to the God-like and noble 
is the inner, more beautiful nature of man, and this must be fostered. To 
foster it negatively, injurious material influences must be removed from 
early youth; to be fostered positively, religious and moral feeling must be 
excited by the contemplation and observation of nature. Empty words 
and phrases must be avoided if we wish to develop the intelligence. The 
pupil must be led to observe what he is learning, not merely to look at it, 
but to look into it. The receptivity of the mind has hitherto been culti- 
vated; Froebel would cultivate its inborn power of production. lie would 
unfold, not mould; he would water, guide, and support the tree, not prop 
or force it. The fostering of the will is negative when it is guarded on 
the bad side; it is positive when the innate love of goodness is exalted to 
an unconquerable habit by continuous exercise, by marrying it to the enthu- 
siasm for the beautiful and true, by which it becomes all-powerful. This 
view of education, as well as his insight that the earliest youth is the most im- 
portant season of life, inevitably led Froebel to the idea of the Kindergarten, 
to that ideal intercourse of dumb innocence which must be guided and 
find its unity in an idealizing human breast. Here and nowhere else is 
guaranteed the possibility of holding off injurious influences. But the 
negative as well as the positive side of education utilizes the child's im- 
pulse to activity. Out of the true use and culture of this impulse all 
the rest follows of itself. 

"Man must not be instructed, but developed. 'I separate instruction 
from development very sharply,' Froebel said that evening, and it is a 
discrimination of the greatest importance. The instructed mind may be 
compared to a river which flows round the cliffs and impediments, nar- 
rows and widens according to necessity, crooks and bends, and skillfully 
and smoothly creeps to the ocean. Such a stream, hedged in by cliffs and 
impeded by rocks, is not adapted to commerce ; it loses its idea, its aim, 
for the aim of the living flood is to be the means of culture. The devel- 
oped man is like a stream whose powerful rush demolishes the rocks, levels 
the hills, pulses like a great vein through the earth, drawing thousands of 
cities to its brink, and tracing out the highway of commerce and culture. 
What is destined to be must be through the use of an idea; that power of 
being is thought alone. If man is developed like the last-mentioned 
stream he knows but one goal to his life, and that is to develop himself 
by developing humanity. The aim of humanity is development, as well 
as the aim of the individual. It must pass on to the human ideal. . . 
Materialism makes the earthly the aim; I know no more decided enemy 
of materialism than Frederick Froebel. His measures will in their last 
consequences offer the means of destroying materialism and idealizing the 
world. Even selfishness is stupid, that it has not more decidedly and 
powerfully opposed it. ' There exists no other power than that of 
thought, as I said to one of the princes,' said the old man that evening. 
• The oneness of the laws of the universe with the laws of the spirit must be 



LANGE'S REMINISCENCES OF FROEBEL. 71 

recognized, — everylliing must be seized as bearer of the idea; every man 
must be governed by ideas, and every man must acknowledge matter to 
be the form for the realizing of thought.' Froebel himself often doubts if 
he shall reach the realization of this idea, which is, so to speak, him- 
self. He expressed this doubt in his short address to the ladies: 
' Ladies, believe me, I gratify the demands of my heart in thanking you 
for your invitation. I have the pleasure of presenting to you an idea 
which is great and holy; an idea whose realization must lead to the happi- 
ness of man. If it is not salient in its truth and its might before your 
eyes it is because of my feeble presentation, and I beg you to throw the fail- 
ure upon me. Fate decided upon me and chose me for its bearer with- 
out having consulted me beforehand. It showed me the importance of an 
education conformable to nature by giving me bitter experiences and 
privations, while the early loss of my mother threw me upon self-edu- 
cation. What one has been obliged to contend with bitterly he wishes 
to soften to his fellow -men. Thus the necessity of self-education led me 
to the education of my fellow men. To strive for this is the aim of my 
life, and will be my occupation to the grave. Make allowances for my 
personality, and cleave to the cause, for the cause is great and important.' 
After his brief address, he conversed with Herr Traun upon collateral 
subjects, and I was astonished at his profound love of fat'xjerland, his deep 
knowledge and insight into our language, which he designated as "the 
flower of all Western tongues. " Frau Westenfeld said to us that Froebel's 
appearance had repelled many ladies. This was natural, but his en- 
thusiasm will yet animate and excite them. 

What is new in Froebel f 

" What is new in Froebel? Froebel's fundamental idea is to educate man 
for freedom. Rousseau rescued individuality; since his time all education 
has rested upon the recognition of the individual and the consciousness 
that the development of self is necessary. The one-sidedness of Rousseau's 
efforts consisted in this, that he would cultivate men only as men, without 
reference to society; therefore, he did not know what to do with his Emil. 
Pestalozzi found the means with which to cultivate the intellectual indi- 
vidual. Whoever wishes to be an individual must work and produce, not 
receive only. This insight awakened in Pestalozzi the principle of object, 
teaching— intuition; 'for nothing is in the mind that has not first been in 
the senses.' Self -activity in man, from childhood up, is the ground and 
means of a natural unfolding. But if education is to lead to self-activity 
it must be by taking into consideration tlie nature of man, for only what 
is really in man can be unfolded. . Does not the worst unbelief come 

out of the doubt of the possibility of perfecting and ennobling man? The 
essence of man is not of necessity recognized in history, for history is not 
a definite whole ; but the laws of the spirit are recognized in their totality 
in the affinities of nature. . . First in our time has the identity of the 
laws of the spirit with the laws of the universe been clearly seen. . . 
The mission of Froebel is to give to education not a one-sided but an all- 
Bided foundation. 

" With the use of the humanistic ideal appeared the following postulate: 



Y2 LANGE'S REMINISCENCES OF PROEBEL. 

Study the being of man in history! With the appearance of Pestalozzi 
came another: Study the being of man in its manifestation of individuality; 
with Froebel : Ground the being of man upon the macrocosmos* The micro- 
cosmos is understood to be in perpetual motion toward the macrocosmos. 
The jDath of this movement is history, — what has already been done. Out 
of the three — macrocosmos, microcosmos, and history, a sj'stem of natural 
developing education unfolds itself. The new thing which Froebel has 
done is that he has taken the study of this trinity as the foundation of 
the science of education, and has represented the necessity of starting 
from the laws of the macrocosmos. 

' ' Upon this foundation alone can a Froebelian school be founded. Every 
system that has any meaning contains the past within itself. The Froebe- 
lian pedagogy differs from the Pestalozzian not in its demands but in its 
basis. The foundation of a developing education conformable to nature is 
first presented and shown in its full meaning by Froebel, and only through 
his school is it possible to raise pedagogy to a science in the true sense of 
that word. It is possible with him because he proceeds upon the principle 
upon which all science rests, — the laws of the mind are identical with the 
laws of the universe. 

"Pestalozzi and Froebel differ no less in the direction of their efforts. 
"When the call, consider individuality, rang up the Rhine, it was natural 
the new education created by Pestalozzi took with the poor whom 
the rich had utterly ignored. One class of men had stamped physical 
necessity into an atomized powder and thus destroyed individuality. 
Pestalozzi would suffer no smutty, ignorant, unskilled man to be de- 
prived of his right to express his will, or be condemned to a merely animal 
existence. He would create for the proletariat the possibility of improve- 
ment and independent industrial activity, and rouse a lawful, i^rotesting, 
hostile voice against human sway by brutality and vice. To this end he 
created the people's school. Pestalozzi was, if the appellation will not be 
misunderstood, tJie pedagogic socialist. 

"When, in the year of the French domination, the death of all German 
nationality seemed irremediable; when the dastardly. hirelings left their 
standards in a heap on the field of battle, Fichte saw that for the redemption 
of Germany a nation must be educated. ' Create a people by national educa- 
tion,' he cried to the princes. The princes appealed to the people, and out- 
ward freedom was inaugurated. It was not Blacher, or Scharnhorst, etc., it 
was Fichte who drove the French out of the land. It was Fichte's deepest 
conviction that the idea of the perfect State could be gained only by edu- 
cation. He said ' the State cannot be constructed intelligently by artificial 
measures and out of any material that may be at hand, but the nation 
must be educated and cultivated up to it. Only the nation which shall 
first have solved the problem of education to perfected manhood through 
actual practice, will solve that of the perfected State.' The philosopher 
was the creator of the idea of national education. Fichte was the pedagogic 
statesman. 

But Frederich Froebel is the pedagogic apostle of freedom. He resembles 

* In the medieval philosophy macrocosm expressed the great world, and man was con- 
ceived of as the microcosm, or opltoino of the great world. — Tr. 



LANGE'S REMINI-CENCES OF FROEBEL. ^3 

Pestalozzi in so far as he has established the universal right to develop- 
ment, has recognized birth or wealth no longer as a criterion of the posi- 
tion of man in society, but makes the inner contents of the man the deter- 
mining force. He resembles Fichte in that, like that truly German man, 
he wishes to awaken the conviction that the individual has importance 
and significance only in connection with society, the whole. The unity of 
man supposes the antecedent necessity of thefHimitation of the individual. 
The love of the individual will waken to unity, and this love will tear up 
selfishness by the roots. He resembles Fichte in that he sees that humanity 
in concreto exists only in the form of nations, and thence awakens the 
national consciousness, holding to and developing the peculiarities of our 
nation. Fi-oebel is in this respect the union of Pestalozzi and Fichte. But 
he separates again from the other heroes of pedagogy by the means he has 
discovered for teaching the end he has in view. Pestalozzi reopened and 
utilized the school. He saw plainly that he had not done enough. He 
recognized the importance of the mother, and the necessity of elevating 
domestic education, but was sure no other means would help the latter 
object than the study of'two books. Fichte hoped for nothing from the 
home, where, according to his opinion, rooted selfishness had barricaded 
door and gate against rational education, and therefore he wished to with- 
draw children from the influence of the mother and let them be cultivated 
in large educational establishments. Froebel stands between the two. He 
sees the ' too little ' in the measures of Pestalozzi, the ' too much ' in the 
propositions of Fichte. He has struck the medium by the idea of the Kin- 
dergarten. He would have the children taken from home for a time, but 
only with a view of coming to the aid of the mother. He would have edu- 
cation in common like Fichte, in order to limit the feeling of individuality, 
and then let it have its play, that selfishness may not spring up, or that it 
may be nipped in the bud. He would have the isolation of the family, 
and then uproot the inactivity and vicious propensities often engendered 
by it by a thoughtful, systematic, playing system of occupation for the 
child. He, like Pestalozzi, wishes for the improved culture of the mother 
not by a little reading of books, but by initiation into an intelligent, be- 
cause natural, system of early education. The new thing which he has 
here brought into view is the consecration and systematic utilization of 
play. He has exalted the idea of the mother, for the mother is in his view 
the one who feelingly comprehends and fosters the being of the child in 
all the manifestations of the different periods of its life. He also gives 
unmarried women an opportunity to be mothers, and has thus given back 
to many unhappy beings the conditions of happiness. He has laid the way 
for the true emancipation of women by giving them the possibility of 
grasping the wheel of universal development independently, and making 
their central point the direction of the education of the future race. 
\ Pestalozzi brought the ideas of Rousseau to realization. Diesterweg 
explained and purified them. In the Roman states the idea of Rousseau 
took no root because education remained dependent upon the church. 
Pestalozzi could not annul that dependence, but Diesterweg gave it its 
death-blow, and first created the possibility of a people's school in the true 
sense of the word. Froebel received from him the purified idea of the 



74 LANQE'S REMINISCENCES OF FROEBEL. 

people's school and fused it with the idea of national education.* By the 
fostering of Dicsterweg and Froebel the first people's school entered upon 
a new step of develojnncnt. lioth men will find their new Diestervveg, 
•who will explain the idea and purify the practice. 

Personal Relations of Froebel. 

"Frederich Froebol's fatligr was a man rich in insi£!;ht, truly religious; 
and he turned his attention with the greatest solicitude to the early educa- 
tion of this youngest son of his beloved, departed wife. He understood 
how to unfold mind and heart in the promising boy by a judicious train- 
ing. The child passed ten years in the parental house, w^hich stood at the 
foot of the Kirchberger, one of the highest summits of the Thuringian 
forest; separated from the great world only by a flower and fruit-garden 
aTul a church-yard; one the region of growth and bloom and ripe life, the 
other tlu' abode of death. These ten years were of the greatest impor- 
tance lo the development of our genius. To point out the dt'tails of this 
unfolding is not the aim of these lines. A fuller treatment can only prop- 
erly do it. 

" At the end of 1792 the father acceded to the wish of Froebel's maternal 
uncle, who had also long since lost his wife, and soon after his only son, 
to give him Frederich, the youngest son of his beloved sister, for further 
education. This maternal uncle was Superintendent Hoffman of Stadt- 
ilm, a little city in the principality of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt. Hoffman 
was as humane as he was distinguished, and as gentle as he was earnest 
and decided. The boy who had been shut out from society was now in its 
full tide, among the numerous friends and relatives of his uncle. It was 
with him as with the seed, which, plunged into the earth by the hand of 
the sower, then transplanted to the manifold, continuous, and persistent 
intluencvs of universal life, unfolds and grows into the powerful tree. He 
remained four years in his uncle's house, receiving instruction during that 
time partly from him and his father,— culture partly from private instruc- 
tion, or in the public school. In 1796 he returned to his father's house. 
The time had now come when he must think of the choice of a calling for 
life. The boy already show^ed the disposition to comprehend clearly and 
thoroughly everything that came within his reach for his culture, but also 
a no less marked tendency to a practical calling. This tendency, as well 
as the circumstances of his fatlier, which were not brilliant, determined 
him not to follow the example of his elder brother, who had devoted him- 
self to purely scientific study, but to take up forest-lore. He assumed the 
calling with the intention of grounding himself in it as deeply and as all- 
sidedly as possible. In 1797 he entered upon this pursuit under the direc- 
tion of a practical forester. The young Froebel, in his unexampled efforts 
to learn the care of forest growths in the most thorough manaer, and by 
his zealous, unassisted study of practical geometry, earned the greatest 
admiration of his teacher, and indeed excited his astonishment in a high 
degree. He had passed almost two years thus, when suddenly his passion 
for the study of natural science was aroused. The physician of the place 

• Note by the translator: Froebel's Kindergarten was in full operation before Dieeter- 
weg knew him. 



LANGE'S REMINISCENCES OF FROEBEL. 76 

where he then resided gave him a scientific work upon botany, which the 
young forester scarcely laid out of his hands till he had made its contents 
completely his own. From this time nothing could hold him back from 
devoting himself to the study of higher mathematics and natural science. 
In the autumn of 171)7 he entered the University of Jena with the purpose 
of studying agriculture in the most comprehensive sense, and also financial 
matheniiitics. A little property from his mother was now made over to 
him by his father. This insignificant sum enabled him to stay a year and 
a half at the university. After this he again studied by himself. 

"In 1802, when he was twenty years of age, his father died. He was 
now left quite at his own disposal. A combination of various circum- 
stances induced him in 1804 to take the place of private secretaiy to a 
man of considerable wealth in Mechlenburg. . . In this place his prac- 
tical scientific studies flourished as never before. ' The thought now 
occurred to him that he would gratify an inward desire for the thorough 
study of architecture. For this purpose, in 1805, he yielded to the urgency 
of a friend to come to Frankforton-the-Main. With that meeting began 
a new era in his life. An offer of private pupils enabled him to fix his 
residence in Frankfort. Ilis teaching made an impression upon the prin- 
cipal of a newly-created model school, Dr. Grilner. On the evening of his 
first interview with this gentleman, who greeted him in the most friendly 
manner, the twenty-three year old youth sjioke upon the subject that 
moved his soul so deeply, — the whole aim of his life and his strivings. 
After the lively conversation had ended, Griiner said to his young friend, 
with the deepest conviction: 'Froebel, you must be a schoolmaster!' At 
the same time he ofifered him a vacant position in the model school. As 
Froebel afterwards expressed it, 'the scales fell from his eyes.' It was 
clear to him in a moment that the offered reality was what his mind and 
heart had so long unconsciously .sought in this never-ending struggle for 
self-culture. Offer and response followed in the same moment, and Froe- 
bel became a teacher in the model school of Frankfort. 

EXPEKIENCE IN TE.\CniN(J. 

"We can readily imagine that the young teacher endeavored to satisfy' 
the demands of his present position to the best of his ability. He perceived 
very soon that the method of instruction must be directed by the laws of, 
development of the human mind as well as by that of the subject to be, 
taught, and that the essence of the method is the art of adapting the 
momentary stage of development in the scholar to the corresponding one' 
of the subject. This law of development he carefully sought; this art he, 
endeavored to make his own. Griiner perceived the restless striving of; 
Ibis young friend, and gave him for his theoretic outline in pedagogy the 
writings of Pestalozzi. This awakened in Froebel the burning desire to' 
know personally the man who was seeking to prepare the way to a new 
education conformable to nature. He went to Yverdun, was fourteen days 
in the Pestalozzi Institute, and returned to his former situation with the 
re.'?olution to understand precisely, earlier or later, by practice, the efforts 
of the Swiss schoolman. 

" He was soon able to carry out his resolution, for in 1807 a very esti- 



76 LANGS' S REMINISCENCES OF FROEBEL. 

mable family in Frankfort gave him the direction of their children's edu- 
cation, which he undertook on the condition that after a time he should 
take his pupils to Yverdun, in order to put himself in connection with Pes- 
talozzi's Institute. From 1808 to 1810 he went to Yverdun with his three 
pupils, lived quite independently of the Institute, but put himself in living 
relation with it. He was now at the same time pupil and teacher. Deeply 
penetrated by the importance of the Pestalozzian efforts, he was eager to 
spread his principles actively in his own country. Yet he could not avoid 
seeing that the principle of Pestalozzi as developed did not reach the inner 
connection of the child's soul with the mother and outward things. He 
conceived the purpose of improving and contributing his own culture to 
laying a deep and firm foundation. This purpose determined him in 1810 
to leave Pestalozzi and the family of his pupils in order to devote himself 
in Gottingen to the deeper study of the natural sciences. In 1811 he 
entered the University of Berlin for the same purpose. In Berlin the per- 
suasion was strengthened to ripeness in him that all life, that is, develop- 
•' ment into the whole, was founded upon one law, and that this unity must 
be the basis of all principles of development, its beginning and end. This 
conviction was the fruit of a profound study of nature in its law of devel- 
opment, and the most careful contemplation of the child. He gained an 
opportunity for this latter observation by teaching, while he was studying 
'■ in Berlin, in Plamann's famous Pestalozzian institution for boys. 

"In the spring of 1813 the extreme need of the fatherland called him 
into the ranks of the volunteer soldiers, and there quite early he made the 
acquaintance of his later companions and fellow-workers, Langenthal and. 
Middendorff, who had been also studying in Berlin. During the war he 
never lost sight of his fundamental thought, and he utilized all its phe- 
nomena to illustrate it. The rapid progress of events in the summer of 
1814 left him free to go back to his former relations. He soon became, by 
the influence of higher patrons, assistant and inspector in the Royal 
Museum of Mineralogy, under Professor Weiss. 

" Froebel was now truly encompassed by the treasures of nature. When 
he had combined the results of his unwearied investigations in the univer- 
sity, it became more and more clear to him that the recognition of the con- 
formity to law and the harmony of nature was only so far of truth as it 
can be applied to human life, and thus effects its transformation. The 
more opportunity our investigator had to watch nature in its development, 
the more he was impelled to compare the results of this search with the 
conformity to law in the development of humanity in the cJiild. Ever 
clearer to him was the identity of the laws of development of the macro- 
cosm with those of the microcosm; more and more important did this 
knowledge appear to him to be for the development of individual men, as 
I well as for the race; ever anew was his delight kindled in putting in prac- 
tice an education conformable to nature. He resolved to give up his 
position in the museum, and devote himself wholly to the education of 
men and children. His repeated application for discharge was granted 
him, after friendly and urgent remonstrance from Professor Weiss. 
The question now was where to find the natural and vital point of connec- 
tion with his new undertaking. This soon appeared in his own family, 



LANGB'S REMINISCENCES OP FROEBEL. 77 

for the war had left the children of his eldest brother fatherless. To begin 
his educational activity with these children was his plan when he left Ber- 
lin. He took leave of his friends Langenthal and Middendorff, who had 
returned after the war to their theological studies, and with whom Froebel 
continued in the closest friendship. He did not tell them anything about 
his plan, but promised to inform them when he had reached something 
definite. In 1816, at the end of September, he left Berlin and found in 
Greisheim five of his sister's children assembled for education and care, 
and there and with them his great educational undertaking began. He 
had no outward means for carrying it on, nothing but this inward convic- 
tion and firm trust in its result. By the sale of a collection of minerals he 
realized a few crowns, which he used for the adornment of his Christmas 
festival and the partial re-building of his little house. One brother took 
care of the maintenance of his two sons, who received education and care 
in the budding institution, and also for the maintenance of their charge. 
The mother, who in the beginning lived in Greisheim, took care of the 
fatherless nephews. In the early part of the year 1817 Middendorff, the 
youngest friend of Froebel, decided to aid him as far as possible in the 
execution of his purpose. He hastened, accompanied by the youngest 
brother of Langenthal, who, at the wish of this friend, joined the other 
pupils to Griesheim in April of the next year. The expenses of the young 
Langenthal were defrayed by a responsible family in which the brother 
was house-tutor. Middendorff was in circumstances that enabled him to 
assist in the plan by practicing some little economy. 

Griesheim was not long the place of the new institution. The widowed 
sister-in-law of Froebel was obliged to choose for her place of abode, the 
little village of Keilhau, which lies in what is called the Schalathal, an 
hour's ride from Rudolstadt. She purchased for her subsistence a little 
peasant's property. To be able to carry on the education of her children, 
Froebel and Middendorff followed her to Keilhau. Both men occupied 
a small tenement that had neither window, floor, or stove, and, with nar- 
row means, these friends of youth had to contend with the greatest obsta- 
cles. A sketch of these privations, as heard from the lips of Middendorff, 
would be instructive and interesting. 

School at Keilhau. 
"In October, 1817, the elder Langenthal joined the two friends. In 
November of that year a school-building was put up in the widow's yard, 
but it could not be finished immediately. Towards the spring of 1818, the 
number of pupils had increased to twelve. Froebel was now thinking of 
marrying, that his pupils might have a loving mother and superintendent 
of the house-keeping. It was his wish to bring home a motherlj"- woman, 
who could understand him and appreciate his efforts. Such a being was 
his now dead wife, Wilhelmine, Miss Hofmeister of Berlin. She was the 
daughter of a royal Prussian counsellor of war. She was full of enthu- 
siasm for Froebel's educational idea. As inspector of the Mineralogical 
Museum of Berlin, he had often in confidential conversations imparted to 
his friend Counsellor Hofmeister, and his daughter, what was moving in 
his inmost soul. The daughter had so often listened to the outpourings of 



78 LANGE'S REMINISCENCES OP FROEBEL. 

his mind and heart with unspoken enthusiasm that she was now willing 
to follow him out of the throng and rush, the glitfrering halls and refined 
society of the great city, into the quiet village in which dwelt the man 
I who asked her to give him her hand for the realizing of a great idea. If 
it had not been for her, the world would never have known Frederich 
Froebel as the originator of the Kindergarten. 

"On the 20th of September, accompanied by one of her foster-daughters, 
Wilhelmine Hofmeister entered the Keilhau circle as wife, mother, and 
house-keeper. Shortly before his marriage, Froebel came into possession 
of the yard in which the newly-built school-house stood. In 1820 his 
eldest brother, father of his first two pupils, decided to give up domicile 
and manufactory in Asterode on the Nanz, an\i to devote the activity of 
his family and his outward means to the idea of his brother. He had so 
often carried his brother in his arms when a child, he wished now to live 
with him and associate himself with his thought, that bond which holds 
the world together most firmly. The development of the institution now 
made quiet, secure, and continuous progress. 

By degrees appeared the following writings, which testified of this 
progress to the world: 

Publications, 1819-1826. 

I 1. Concerning the German Educational Institution at Rudolstadt, 1819. 

2. Continued information of the German Educational Institution at 
Keilhau; Rudolstadt, 1823. 

3. Christmas festival in the Educational Institution at Keilhau — a 
Christmas gift to the honored parents of the pupils, the friends and mem- 
bers of the Institution, 1824. 

" Beautiful family festivals cast a beneficent light, from time to time, like 
brilliant sparks of illumination, over the whole lives of the united friends 
of education. Such irradiation shone out on the 16th of September, 1825. 
On that day were betrothed the two friends of Froebel, Hcinrich Langen- 
thal and the afore-mentioned foster-daughter of Frau Froebel, Ernestine 
Crispine, and "William Middendorll and Albertine, daughter of Froebel's 
eldest brother. The pupils of the Institute had made a path on the cele- 
bration of this festival, for the ascent of the encircling mountain, that the 
happy couples, in the beginning of this most important era of their lives, 
might be able to look down from that height on the result of many years 
of effort. There was inward and many-sided joy on that day in the quiet, 
peaceful valley in the Thuringian forest. This happy day was followed 
by a second, an ascension-day in 1826, — the day of Langenthal's and Mid- 
dendorff's marriage. 

"In the following year, 1826, appeared two books by Froebel: 

" 1. The Education of Man; the art of education, instruction, and theory 
practiced at the German Educational Institution in Keilhau, by the author, 
founder, and superintendent, Frederich Froebel. 

" 2. Educational Family weekly paper for Self -culture, and the culture 
of others. Edited by Frederich Froebel; Leipsic and Keilhau. 

" One work, entitled Ground Principles of the Education of Man, whose 
contents he imparted to his friends in Frankfort-on-the-Main, before their 
publication, gave the latter an opportunity for a longer scientific confer- 



\ 



LANGE'S REMINISCENCES OP FROEBEL. 79 

ence upon the subject M'ith the autlior of the little work. Froebel pro- 
posed to visit these worthy friends in order to prosecute these conversations 
by word of mouth. Before Froebel set out upon his visit there appeared 
another powerful fellow-worker at Keilhau m the person of Johannes 
Arnold Barop, the nephew of Middendorff, married to the sister of Frau 
Middendorfl (Froebcl's niece). After he had finished his theological 
Studies in Halle he became a zealous cooperator in the Institute at Keilhau. 

Experience in Switzerland. 

" Froebel made his visit to Frankfort in the early part of May, 1831. It 
was one of marked importance for the further development of his cause. 
He met in Frankfort with the famous Xave Schnyder von Wartensee, 
well known m the musical world as a critical author and methodriker, as 
well as an opera composer, and he was a friend and cultivator of natural 
history. Froebel was soon on terms of intimacy with him. Schnyder 
von Wartensee was often a witness of the pedagogic and didactic efforts 
of his friend. Under this influence he asked Froebel to found an institu- 
tion according to his principles at his family-seat, the castle of Wartensee, 
on Sempacher lake, in the canton of Lucerne. Froebel joyfully seized 
this opportunity to spread further his efforts after a developing education 
conformable to nature. The 20th of July of that year foimd him in Swit- 
zerland, and on the 12th of August he and Schnyder, with the reqiusite 
authorization, founded the first educational institution for girls in Switzer- 
land. Schnyder then returned to his old occupation, and parted from 
Froebel with these words : ' I have given you a new field for spreading 
your views. Now win the love of men, which shall never fail you.'* The 
confidence, Indeed, the love of men, soon showed itself. Froebel was 
obliged to invite Ferdinand Froebel, his first pupil, who had just finished 
his philosophical studies at Jena, to come to his aid; a call which Ferdi- 
nand joyfully obeyed. He came to his uncle as fellow teacher and edu- 
cator on the fifteenth anniversary of the day on which he had come as 
a pupil. A year after, 1832, late in the autumn, Froebel was requested by 
a society of fathers to plan out his Institute at Willisau. The society 
offered to purchase for the purpose the Upper bailiwick's Castle. Nothing 
delayed the imdertaking but the want of the grant from the authorities. 
In the interval Froebel went to Germany, there to prepare for its estab- 
lishment. 

" Ferdinand Froebel and Arnold Barop, who had come on a visit to 
Keilhau in 1832, went with him to the Institute at Wartensee. The pleas- 
ure of returning to the old circle after six months' absence was very great 
to Froebel. A few days after his arrival his beloved nephew William, 
brother of Ferdinand Froebel, died. He was a teacher in the institution 
where he had been himself educated. His uncle specially loved our Wil- 
liam Froebel, and was plunged into the deepest grief by his sudden death. 
But he was soon called out of the quiet valley into the battle-ground of 
life. The consent of the S^iss authorities was obtained for the founding 
of the Institute for girls at Willisau. 

* This is not strictly correct. 



80 LANGE'S REMINISCENCES OF FROEBEL. 

Scliool for Girls at WiUisau. 
In the beginning of 1833 Froebel returned to Switzerland, accompanied 
by his wife, ever ready to sacrifice herself, but with health much shattered 
by the complication of circumstances and her ceaseless motherly cares. 
On the 1st of May the two entered WiUisau, and on the 2d the institution 
was opened. In spite of storms and conflicts which were occasioned by Cath. 
olic opposition, the tender plant grew vigorously. During the conflict the 
neighboring government of the canton of Berne had been attentively 
observing the Froebelian Institute. This was proved in 1833, for the 
Berne government sent men of sense and experience to pass judgment on 
the results of the examination. Their report showed that out of five 
young schoolmen from Berne, who for the most part belonged to a certain 
sphere of active work, two went to WiUisau for a year and a half of cul- 
ture under Froebel's direction. The remote consequence of this was that 
Froebel was obliged to have a course of instruction at Burgdorf , in con- 
nection with several others for teachers, whose number increased to sixty. 
For the direction of this course, and to forw^ard his institution at the same 
time, he summoned his friend Langenthal to Switzerland, and this so much 
the more readily, that Barop had returned to Keilhau in 1833 in order to 
assist MiddendorfE in the mother Institute. In the same year the institu- 
tion at WiUisau received another co-laborer in the person of Adolf Franken- 
berg. In 1834 Froebel returned from Burgdorf to Willisau, into his old place, 
and to hold his second autumnal examination ; but he soon gave a hearing 
at Burgdorf to a call from the State authorities, who requested him to found 
an Educational Orphan Institute in the newly-erected orphan-house. In 
the summer of 1835 he entered upon his new field. Wlien the afore-men- 
tioned institution was again opened, Langenthal went with him as assist- 
ant, and his wife as Frau Froebel's assistant. The loss of Langenthal at 
Willisau was made good by Middendorff, who willingly left wife and 
children in Keilhau in order to help forward the prosperity of the daughter 
Institute. The tender plant at Burgdorf also took root by the unceasing 
care of the men and their wives, and grew apace. Frau Froebel, especially, 
and above all others, worked vigorously and unweariedly. But her health 
had been much shattered by the former journey to Switzerland, as mentioned 
above, and was still more so by the hard labors at Willisau, to say nothing 
of the trouble and care which the commencement of house-keeping at 
Burgdorf had required. Her body and mind needed rest and nursing, and 
she wished to go back to Keilhau ; but, at the same time, she wished to see 
once more her beloved aged mother in Berlin. A journey to Keilhau and 
Berlin was therefore projected for the early part of 1836, for the unceasingly 
working couple. But in March of 1836 came the news of the sudden 
death of the mother. The already sick woman, Madame Froebel, was 
prostrated by this blow, so that the physician urged her to return to Ger- 
many. Froebel now assigned his work at Burgdorf to Langenthal, and 
left for Berlin with his wife, partly to adjust the matter of her inheritance. 

Genesis of the Kindergarten. 
During Froebel's residence in Berlin the fundamental thought of his edu- 
cational efforts penetrated his soul more clearly than ever; here it was 



RANGE'S REMINISCENCES OP FKOEBEL. 81 

rliiat his hours of musing were occupied with the plan that was forming 
pithiu him for the early instruction of little children. It was now clear 
him that the elevation of all education, that of the earliest childhood as 
le most important time for human development was indispensable, and 
lat in its behalf play, as the first activity of the child, mnst be spiritualized 
and systematically treated. The idea of the Kindergarten rose upon him;* 
he wrote to Berlin for his first materials for plays and occupations, and 
immediately formed the purpose of fovmding an institution for the care of 
the earliest childhood. He selected for this new institution the little town 
of Blankenburg, on the Schwarze, at the entrance of the so-called Thurin- 
gian-Switzerland — a place which, on account of its healthy, beautiful situ- 
ation, was particularly suitable for his sweet wife. In 1837 the institution 
was founded. In 1838 Froebel issued from Blankenberg a paper entitled 
'Seeds, Buds, Floicers, and Fruits out of Life, for the Education of United 
Families.^ A Sunday issue was under the call: 'Come, let us live with 
our children. '■ '"' 

"This year, the year 1838, in reference to the system of Froebel in' 
genera], and the Kindergarten in particular, is a classical year, and should 
be so called, and the paper must here be recommended to readers to whom 
it is destined to give a fundamental conception of this pedagogic innova- 
tion. It contains an exposition of the great principles of the system, and 
a development of the material for play in its natural necessity and its har- 
monic connection. The new idea of the Kindergarten drew all the friends 
of Froebel again around him. Langenthal left Ferdinand Froebel to con- 
duct the orphan home in Burgdorf, and went to Blankenberg, IMidden- 
dorf left Willisau and returned to Keilhau, into the lap of his family, 
which had long missed the loving father. Froebel, in 1839, in company 
with Frankenberg, responded to a call from Dresden to speak upon his 
educational principles, especially to present his idea of the Kindergarten. 
We know that the seed fell upon good ground in that city. During his 
residence in Dresden his wife died ; one of those rare women who served 
an idea at the greatest possible sacrifice, that of her life. She lived to see 
the Kindergarten idea accepted through the representations of her hus- 
band, and parted from him satisfied. After this deep wound, — the bitterest 
experience to him — had done bleeding, the veteran worked on actively, 
and repeated at Hamburg what he had said in Dresden. A great purpose 
now took possession of his soul. He had not as yet an institution in 
which his sj'stem could be presented in its whole comprehensiveness, and 
which should at the same time secure the further development of his work 
for the young. Here and there were institutions in Froebel's sense, and 
also Kindergartens; but a central point was wanting, a heart from which 
life flows into all the limbs, in order to throw it back again to the source." 

( To be continued.) 

* Prof. Payne presents his conception of the genesis of the Kindergarten in Froebel's 
meditations and experience, very happily in his 'L^cixiK.— Froebel and the Kindeigarten. 



82 FROEBEL AND HIS EDUCATIONAL WORK. 



I 

i 



THE KINDERGARTEN — ITS GENESIS AND NAME.* 

' To Froebel, the friend of children, to whom the childish nature readil^ 
and willingly revealed itself, was it given to find, in the very growt-'i 
of the child, the natural way of development. Long years of loving 
observation taught him that the individual inner life of the child reveals 
itself nowhere more freely and perfectly than in play. He wished to 
apply his means of development to the personality, as it makes its appear- 
ance in self -activity, and this could happen only in play. With this his 
problem was solved at once. He had only to allow the child to play; to 
give him suitable materials for it; to find proper games to teach the child 
and his companions, and to prepare them by degrees for useful occupa- 
tions, and eventually for real work, by methodically arranged gradations. 
Of this we will hear him speak. In a letter to Barop, written Feb. 18, 
1829, he says: "During the short time employed in writing these lines 
the thought of my and our educational work has essentially unfolded 
itself, while it has gone further back in respect to its application, and 
grounded itself so much the more deeply. The education and training 
of little children from three to seven years old has occupied my mind for 
a long time. A multitude of thoughts and influences crowding upon me 
at once decided me to establish an institution for the care and develop- 
ment of orphan and motherless children of both sexes, of the ages above- 
mentioned." This thought appears much more clearly in a letter from 
Burgdorf , Switzerland, written March 1, 1836, in which he announces to 
the educational circle at Keilhau that he has decided to found an institu- 
tion for instruction in the art of accurate observation, leading to self- 
improvement, through play and occupation. In the course of the letter 
he says further : 

" For a long time I have cherished the thought of making my means of 
facilitating accurate observation for culture and instruction complete 
and universal by a multiplication and publication of the same. Only 
since the end of the last year, and especially since the beginning of this, 
do my circumstances and relations permit the carrying out of this under- 
taking. I consider and order my whole life in reference to it since I 
have taken the decided resolution and formed the plan; first to perfect all 
my methods of facilitating accurate observation, of teaching, instruction, 
and culture, into many series following each other, separated into mem- 
bei's, but vitally connected in the form of children's plays, and as a means 
of self -occupation and self-information through observation and creation, 
through a varied self-activity, and therefore through a methodical and 
legitimate satisfaction of the instinct for culture in the child. My under- 
taking diffei's very essentially from all similar ones ali-eady introduced, in 
its spirit, in its inner qualities, in its unity, from which everything pro- 
ceeds, and in conformity to the laws of life, according to which all mani- 
foldness is revealed, in its inner vital coherence; in a word, in the many- 
sided human scientific, as well as practical, foundation." Then follows 
the further presentation of the peculiarities of the system. Soon after 

*By Ferdinand Winther, in Diesterweg's Wegweiser.— Edition of 1876. Translated by 
MisB Lucy WbeeJock, of the Chauncy-Eall Kindergarten, Boston. 



PROEBEL AND HIS EDUCATIONAL WORK. 83 

'this private announcement there followed, in the Sonntagsblatt, in 1838, 
a public request that families should unite to carry out the motto of this 
paper, " Come, let us live with our children." He says therein, 

"As this paper is designed, first of all, to explain and introduce the pro- 
posed institution, it begins immediately with the foundation of the whole. 
In the germ of every human being lies embedded the form of its whole 
future life. On the proper comprehension and care of this beginning 
depends solely the happy unfolding of the man leading to perfection, and 
the ability to accomplish his destiny, and thus to win the true joy and 
peace of life. The active and creative, living and life-producing being 
of man, reveals itself in the creative instinct of the child. All human 
education and true culture, and our understanding also, is bound up in 
the quiet and conscientious nurture of this instinct of activity, in the 
family; in the judicious unfolding of the child, to the satisfaction of the 
same, and in the ability of the child, true to this instinct, to be active." 

Froebel's practical experiment with the Kindergarten in Blankenburg 
was received at first with doubtful smiles. But when the people saw 
with what joyful zeal children of every age, after a short time, pressed to 
the merry sports, in the invention of which Froebel was inexhaustible, 
and in the guidance of which he was a master; when the children took 
home their ornamental sewing and weaving, where, contrary to their 
former habits, they devoted themselves, of their own free will, to enter- 
taining occupations, then, with their growing understanding of the sys- 
tem, the parents began to appreciate it, and doubt changed to true interest 
in Froebel's young creation. In the midst of this activity, full of life 
and experience, the idea of the Kindergarten grew clearer and fuller in 
Froebel's mind, so that in 1840, at the Guttenberg festival, which the 
educational institutions for children and youth in Blankenburg and Keil- 
hau celebrated in common, he could present a new and more comprehen- 
sive plan, which he hoped to call into life with the help and participation 
of the German people. 

Appeal to the Women of Germany in 1840. 
One cannot read without admiration and emotion the words with which, 
in his speech at the festival, he tried to win the German women for his 
work. " Therefore, I dare," he said, toward the end of his speech, "con- 
fidently to invite you who are here present, honorable, noble, and discreet 
matrons and maidens, and through you, and with you all women, young 
and old, of our fatherland, to assist by your subscription in the founding 
of an educational system for the nurture of little children, which shall be 
named Kindergarten, on account of its inner life and aim, and German 
Kindergarten, on account of its spirit. Do not be alarmed at the appar- 
ent cost of the shares ; for if you, in your housekeeping, or by your in- 
dustry, can spare only five pennies daily, from the presumptive time of 
the first payment until the end, the ten dollars are paid at the last payment. 
Do not let yourselves be kept from the actual claims of the plan by the 
contemptible objection ' Of what use to us is it all? ' Already the idea of 
furthering the proper education of the child through appropriate foster- 
ing of the instinct of activity, acts like light and warmth, imperceptibly 
and beneficently, on the well-being of families and citizens; how much 



84 FROEBEL AND HIS EDUCAIIONAL WORK." 

greater then are the possibilities of the daily, or even weekly, or monthly, 
attendance at such an institution. Staying here for a few hours has a 
good and blessed influence for days, weeks, months, and years; for good 
is not like a heavy stone which only acts, and is perceived where it 
presses; no — it is like water, air, and light, which invisibly flow from one 
place to another, awakening, watering, fertilizing, nourishing what is 
concealed from the searching eye of man, — even slumbers in our own 
breasts unsuspected by ourselves. Good is like a spark which shines far 
and points out the way and direction. Therefore, let us all, each in his 
own way, advance what our hearts recognize as good — the care of young 
children. Do you ask for the profits of your investment; in technical 
language, the dividends on your shares? Open your eyes impartially, 
your hearts also ; there is more in it than we have represented in the plan 
of the undertaking. Or is the beautiful any less a gift and a real value 
in our life because it passes away easily? Is the good also any less a gift 
because only the heart perceives it? Is the true any less a gift because it 
is unseen, and only the spirit observes it? And shall we count for noth- 
ing the reaction on the family weal, and the happiness of the children, in 
joy of heart and peace of mind? You can enjoy these great gifts in full 
measure; for they are the fruit of your cooperation, the fruits of the 
Garden which you establish and care for, — the fruits of your property. 
Besides, is it not almost more than this to take the lead and stand as 
models for a whole country, to advance the happiness of childhood and 
the well-being of families throughout an entire nation?" 

Universal German Institution. • 
" FroebeVwas not deceived in his deep, unshaken confidence. Owing to 
the deeply-felt need of suitable training for children before their entrance 
into school, the Kindergarten was founded as a Universal German Insti- 
tution at the Guttenberg festival in 1840, a day which pointed to 
a universal breaking of the light, and in his report of June, 1843, which 
is signed by the burgomaster Witz, as well as by Middendorff and Barop, 
Froebel could announce good results of his effort and a general and 
honorable recognition. In order to kindle the sparks of appreciation 
glimmering here and there into a clear flame by the breath of his own 
never-failing enthusiasm, he proposed to visit all the larger cities of 
Germany. He succeeded, especially in Hamburg and Dresden, in winning 
laborers for his vineyard, and in establishing Kindergartens. The seed- 
corn which he thus scattered fell in good soil, and grew to flowering 
plants through the faithful care of his pupils and adherents. 

Mother Play and Nursery Song. SonntagsUatt. 
Of his literary works of this time, two, devoted to the pedagogics of 
the Kindergarten, deserve especial mention. Die Mutter- und Eoselieder 
is so called from the little rhymes which Froebel gives the mother to sing 
or repeat in order to occupy and entertain profitably her child from one 
to two years old, with all kinds of sports and plays, when dressing and 
undressing, washing, eating, etc. The little arms and legs, hands and 
fingers, play the principal part; they learn to do little feats, to manage 
and move themselves, and are strengthened by exercise. Many occur- 



FROEBEL AND HIS EDUCATIONAL WORK. 85 

3nces also of domestic life or those nearly allied, are judiciously 
.lustrated by picture and song. This method happily discovered by 
'""roebel has since received the highest artistic development through 
ilichter and Oscar Pletsch. The Sonntagsblatt (1838-1840) has a special 
value from the fact that Froebel published in it his "play -gifts" which 
characterized the Kindergarten and its method of culture, explained their 
meaning, and described their use. A comparison of Froebel's play -gifts 
with those which from year to year competitive industry offers so richly — 
not exactly for the benefit of the world of children — first shows them la 
their true light. Almost all the playthings which we buy in our toy-shops 
filled with all possible expense, are finished and perfect in themselves, often 
perfectly constructed objects whose beauty cannot be denied. Children 
stand amazed and delighted at the sight of a Christmas table ornamented 
with such gifts. But how long does the joy last? After a short time it 
changes first to indifference, then to disgust; and economical parents 
put away under lock and key for a later time, the things that are still 
tolerably well preserved. What can the child do with playthings on 
which already the fancy of an artist has worked and has left almost noth- 
ing for the self -activity of the child. The only thing it can do with these 
is to take them apart and destroy them. But the punishments inflicted on 
such occasions, show how many parents entirely misunderstand this 
expression of the instinct of activity so worthy of recognition, and the 
desire for knowledge and learning of the children. If one give to an 
indulged child the choice of his play-material, he will see that a stick of 
wood will be the dearest doll, mother's foot-stool the coach of state, a 
little heap of sand material for cooking, baking, building, writing, and 
drawing, and father's cane a darling pony. According to these experi- 
ences Froebel was anxious to make his gifts for play as simple as possible. 

Gifts for Play. 

First Gift for Play. The Balls — three balls of prinyiry and three of 
secondary colors. With these the very little ones practice catching, 
swinging on a string, hopping, rolling, hide and seek, etc. With advanc- 
ing age all known ball-plays come in succession. 

Second Gift. Sphere, Cylinder, and Cube. The sphere, a solid ball, 
movable, but in every position the same. The cube stationary, but differ- 
ing according to the position. The cylinder, rolling or standing, connect- 
ing the other two. All three in their connection leading over to the build- 
ing plays. 

Third Gift. The cube, divided into eight equal parts. It shows the 
whole and its parts, outside and inside, relations of size and number, ar- 
rangement, and direction. 

The Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Gifts form another step by perpendicular, 
horizontal, oblique divisions into different sizes. The variety of the differ- 
ent forms is infinitely great and is classified into — First, forms of knowl- 
edge, in which the laws of form, magnitude, and number are used; 
second, forms of beauty, by which the perception of what is pleasing to 
the eye is represented; third, forms of life, in which objects of real 
life, as furniture, implements, buildings, plants, and animals, are imitated. 



86 FROEBEL AND HIS EDUCATIONAL WORK. 

The three following gifts, Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth, are, the flat O; ■ 
laying tablets, stick-laying, and ring-laying. These lead the child whi, 
has practiced representation with the building boxes, or through surfac* 
and linear forms, to drawing, which stands in relation with the interestin|l 
pricking and sewing. When the outlines of the form of life and beauty 
drawn on the paper are pricked through with the needle so that they show 
on both sides of the paper, then drawing in colored outline is again rep- 
resented by sewing with colored threads. Weaving comes in here, which 
is first practiced with colored paper strips, and later with the most diverse 
materials, such as straw, bast, leather, ribbon, etc., and intertwining with 
thin, pliable wooden sticks. 

As these occupations lead from the line to the surface, so the paper- 
folding, which follows, goes back to the solid imitating such things 
as a boat, hat, star, bird, etc. The hand is trained to skill, and the eye to 
careful observation, by the cutting by which the smallest piece of paper 
-is changed into a means of entertainment and culture; and still more by 
the pease-work, in which the pointed ends of fine wooden sticks are stuck 
into soaked peas, and by this means the forms laid are fixed. When they 
create little architectural works, the objects represented appear in outline; 
they are transparent, also, and explain and illustrate perspective, figurative 
representation. Modeling in wax and clay ranks here as the last and 
highest step in which self-activity is given the fullest play, as well as the 
opportunity for the satisfaction of any existing artistic talent. 

This close connection, at every step, with life, marks the standpoint 
from which Froebel wished to consider even the smallest thing in the life 
of a child. It is not the least excellence of the succession of clay mould- 
ing, pease-work, cutting, folding, weaving, building, pasting, pricking, 
isewing, and similar employments, which pertain to the first exercises in 
ithe comprehension of form and in training the eye, and form a necessary 
istepping-stone to geometry, geography, drawing, and writing, that they 
imingle in his plays and amusements, in whatever moves and animates 
childhood; and thereby satisfy the unity of the consciousness. 

Movement Plays, and Songs. 

The "play-gifts" mentioned form the part of the Kindergarten occupa- 
tions which Froebel classed under the name of "mental plays." He 
ishows quite a different phase of its workings in the "movement plays." 
They have, besides the common aim of plaj^s, the object of satisfying the 
limpulse of the child for the movement of its limbs, and also of advanc- 
ling the bodily development. For a gain in this direction should not only 
always go hand-in-hand with mental improvement, but in the Kinder- 
garten receives a prominent place. 

The Kindergarten must offer fundamentally what most dwellings allow 
•only occasionally from lack of room, and the grown-up inhabitants of 
them from desire of quiet; what the deplorable lack of free public places 
Igiven up to the young; what the larger cities, with their foot-passengers, 
'riders, and wagons, make almost impossible to children — an unchecked 
(movement of their limbs, which is to them a necessity almost as pressing 
as drawing the breath. For, besides the closed room or hall, it must 
have, where possible, an open place planted with trees — a play-ground. 



FROEBEL AND HIS EDUCATIONAL WORK. 87 

Here in the fresh air the little ones may live in cheerful activity and mo- 
tion, and thus bloom merrily like the flowers of a garden. From the 
numberless dancing and singing plays which are handed down to the 
child's world from age to age by tradition, and of which every province 
and every city carefully cherishes special ones as its peculiar property, 
Froebel has collected the best, improved many of them by stripping off 
excrescences marring the original, and made them serve the educational 
aim of the Kindergarten. He has also added to them by his own inven- 
tion. Through them all the pupils of the Kindergarten are first brought 
into living intercourse with each other, and share in the beneficent influ- 
ence which living with his equals exerts on the child. Every movement 
play furthers the activity of all participants for a common end, which 
can only be reached when law and order rule. The Kindergartuer guid- 
ing the play suffers no arbitrariness, no rude forwardness, no quarrelsome 
disputes, no domineering of the stronger and crowding of the weaker. 
Every one must do his part, according to his gifts and powers. The 
timid and those holding back must be encouraged, the forward ones in- 
structed and reminded of their bounds, and all must have their rights. 
Living in such a well-ordered and conducted community exerts a good 
Influence on the conduct of the children so very quickly that it shows 
itself in the family sometimes after a few weeks, in greater patience and 
ready willingness. The fear that a watchful guidance will disturb the 
happy little ones in their joy is quite unfounded. He misunderstands 
children who thinks that they prefer to play senselessly and aimlessly. 
On the contrary, when they are sure that a grown person will enter into 
their ways with kindness, they will invite such an one to show them an 
orderly play, or to decide how it must be properly plaj^ed, or to bring the 
right order into that already begun. 

The movement plays have another more vital center of union in the 
songs which accompany them. Every play has its song, which arises 
from it or is related to it, and which is sung sometimes by an individual, 
sometimes by the chorus. There is hardly anything which so claims the 
entire spiritual life of children and so irresistibly invites sympathy as 
singing. No sense lends its perceptions so directly to the heart as that of 
hearing. No activity is such a direct and almost involuntary expression 
of inner harmony as singing. Rightly then did Froebel and his friends 
devote to it an especially careful attention, and direct by it a prominent 
part in the plaj's. If, in spite of the many words and melodies given, 
one cannot repress the remark that neither the practical nor the musical 
Bide of the Kindergarten appear to be unfolded in the same degree as the 
educational, still he must think fairly, and not expect everything from 
one man. Many a roughness in Frocbel's often extemporized verses, 
which often digress too strongly to the instructive and playful, has been 
polished already by a tender hand. In our folk-songs there yet lie con- 
.cealed many grains of gold that should be unearthed and polished. 

Intercourse with Nature. 
A '.1. -d and by no means subordinate direction of the activity of the 
Kinderg . • -^ is devoted to the intercourse of the children with nature. 



88 FROEBEL AND HIS EDUCATIONAL WORK. 

It is doubly important where circumstances render this intercourse diffi- 
cult, where they embitter to man the feeling of his kinship with nature, 
and at the same time spoil the life at many points by too much art. Chil- 
dren should not pass by unsympathetically the beauties which nature 
everywhere offers in rich abundance; their sense and perception of them 
must be awakened and trained. The care, under judicious guidance, of 
plants and animals, offers the best means for this. Whatever grows by 
the child's own care wins his deepest interest. The contemplation fur- 
nishes him solid knowledge and increases his sympathy to admiration and 
love. Therefore, a part of the play-ground should be reserved for a gar- 
den, in which every child has his own little bed which he cultivates him- 
self. If in any way a place can be made for some domestic animals, were 
it only a canary bird, a little dove, a pair of hens, or some gold-fish in a 
globe, it will furnish a fuller satisfaction to this instinct. If the fields 
can be reached without danger of too great exertion on the part of the 
little ones, a walk should be taken at a proper time, which affords num- 
berless opportunities, not only for the observation of nature, but for the 
entire unfolding of the spiritual life of the child. If such unsought occa- 
sions are used with tact they have often a greater influence than the 
methodical instruction imparted by the best system of teaching. 

In the Kindergarten, after a quiet occupation and the general play, 
there should also be pauses to be devoted to unconstrained oral intercourse 
between the Kindergartner in charge and the children, and which are 
filled up most suitably by stories. A little story often does more than a 
long sermon. But it is difficult to tell a story well, and the art must be 
practiced. More difficult still is the choice of material which must be 
adapted to the children's point of view. 

There are yet wanting good Guides, and Manuals, with model lessons and 
exercises ;* but with the means of occupation and play already spoken of the 
Kindergarten is in a condition to take hold of the child's life, rousing, 
animating, and unfolding it in all directions. The few hours of the day 
which the children spend there will echo in their homes through the rich- 
ness and vividness of their impressions. The never-resting instinct of ac- 
tivity in healthy children is no longer at loss for an object. The child 
does not trouble his mother so much; he is more skilful, happier; his 
bad angel, wearisomeness, is banished. 

Improved Domestic Ediication. 
In spite of all this the Kindergarten, according to Froebel's intention, 
has solved only half of its problem, and stands still before the other 
half, which consists in this, that it must be carried on by a bettering of 
the education in the family. This higher aim cannot be considered as 
reached when only an indirect influence is exerted on the family life 
through the pupils of the Kindergarten. No, quite the reverse. Froebel 
created the Kindergarten with the special intention of perfecting by 
practice in it, united with theoretical cultivation, the education of 
woman for her vocation, which, as experience teaches, cannot be consid- 

* Our American Kindergartners, and Mothers, who wish to adopt the Froebel Material , 
and Methods into the Nursery, have now an excellent Manual in ''The Kindergarten 
Guide, by Maria Kraus-Boelte and John Kraus," published by E. Steiger, New York. 



FROEBEL AND HIS EDUCATIONAL WORK. 89 

ered to liave been generally accomplished by simple theory and books for 
mothers, excellent as these may be in themselves. This aim, however, must 
not be lost sight of, for important reasons. For since the mother's influ- 
ence is the first, and therefore the strongest, it follows, of course, that it 
is of the highest importance that it should be the best. And since it is 
not so everywhere, should we not use every opportunity to bring it to 
this ideal? We have lower, middle, and higher girls' schools. Which' 
of these has made a specialty of training young maidens for housewives 
and teachers of their own children? Not one! And they will have 
nothing to do with jt. But this problem still exists. Surely the time will 
come for the young girls when they must take care of children, wait upon 
the sick, and look after kitchen and store-room. Is it to be supposed that 
they learn everything of themselves? The theory of educating little 
children, for which most young girls receive their only preparation in 
playing with dolls, must become a regular and essential part of female 
education, before the "experimenting and educating by hearsay " cease. 
Nowhere can this be learned better than in the closest connection with the 
Kindergarten. 

Froebel developed this in the first detailed plan which he carried out in 
this direction. In such a seminary for Kindergartners and nurse-maids, 
with which also a Kindergarten must be connected, young maidens can, 
in a year, be so instructed and practically trained in the care of little 
children, that they learn to avoid grave errors and gain a foundation, 
from which an independent, wider culture is possible. And can not 
one in this way, better than in any other, come nearer a satisfactory solu- 
tion of the vexed "Woman question?" Will not the administration of 
household affairs and the education of children continue to be the occu- 
pation most suited to woman's nature, and, at the same time, the noblest 
aim of all feminine activity? And will not the unmarried young women 
find in them reconciliation and contentment in richer measure than any 
'emancipation' is able to furnish? There have been already women 
who were zealously active in this direction, and in the greater cities where 
the need is the most urgent, glorious results can be shown. It seems to 
be reserved for these associations of women, with the aid of all the 
strength active in this direction, to smooth the way for a more compre- 
hensive organization. The seminaries for Kindergartners in Hamburg, 
Berlin, Dresden, Gotha, and other places, all of which are under the 
direction of private individuals and supported by voluntary contribution, 
to which the pupils add a small nominal sum for instruction, have for a 
number of years sent out a good number of well prepared and trained 
young women of all conditions, who are much in demand as domestic 
assistants, especially for educating children, and help to a more universal 
appreciation of a natural method of treating the little ones. It is for the 
interest of the teacher to advance this work in every way, because the 
Kindergarten, which does not seek to supply the family education (for 
this is by all means the best and generally desirable), but only wishes to 
aid the parents in the care of their children for the period when they do not 
devote themselves to their education and cannot be represented by teach- 



QO FKOEBEL AND HIS EDUCATIONAL WORK. 

» ers, which should even teach all parents the proper discharge of their 
duties as educators, is a preparation for the elementary school. 

Much could be said here of the mental helplessness of children who, 
sent to school in their sixth or seventh year, sometimes bring to the 
teacher an extraordinarily small number of impressions, scarcely any clear 
conceptions, and a very limited use of the mother tongue. 

The experiences of Froebel in Switzerland are repeated in different 
degrees almost everywhere, and are not new to the teachers of the lowest 
elementary classes. But they express the wish to establish an organic 
connection between the Kindergartens and the school, and previously 
show at least, theoretically, their possibilities and usefulness. 

The "General Union for family education and that of the people," 
has repeatedly offered a prize for an essay on this subject, without re- 
ceiving a satisfactory solution of it according to their ideas. Recently, 
the prize was adjudged to a paper of Carl Richter, a teacher in Leipsic, 
the author of the " Pedagogical Library," and of another work ' On Object- 
Teaching in Elementary Schools,' of which honorable mention is made. 

The hope of a future organic connection between the Kindergarten and 
the school, as well as the wished-for introduction of Froebel's method 
into charitable institutions for little children, is not entirely unfounded. 
There are hardly any serious obstacles, since the Kindergarten in no way 
anticipates the real school instruction. And as the Gymnasium has rec- 
ognized it as useful to have scholars properly prepared for its Sexta, by 
the passing through some elementary classes of the so-called Vorschule 
or preparatory school, so in the future perhaps it will be considered nec- 
essary to add a Kindergarten to every elementary school, which will grow 
in time to be an excellent bond between the school and home. 

So the Kindergarten shows itself on every side as an institution in ac- 
cordance with the spirit of the age for bettering the education, of which 
it is the natural foundation, and helping to restore it again in families. 
In spite of the obstacles arising at first from misunderstanding and from 
the feeble support of the public, in the course of a year it won for itself 
an honorable place among the institutions for the education of youth. 
This was owing to the sound strength of the fundamental idea from which 
it proceeded, to a need arising from circumstances, and to the continuous 
exertions of enthusiastic adherents, especially among women. Under 
their guidance the Kindergarten has quietly accomplished a great work, 
in giving to thousands of children happy hours whose stimulating influ- 
ence is felt in the family. 

Although it has not yet received the desired recognition, it may be, per- 
haps, that well-meant but mis-directed zeal has contributed as much to 
this as the cool reserve of those who scorned it under the form, so little 
like a school, into which Froebel poured his full heart to nourish the 
living germ. When it shall be developed more clearly and richly by the 
unwearied zeal of intelligent and judicious patrons, it will then remain 
an integral part of our children's education. 



THE KINDERGARTEN SYSTEM. gj 

THE KINDERGARTEN SYSTEM.* 

Froebel first gave the name of Kindergarten about the year 1840 to his school 
of voiuig children between three and seven years of age at Blankenburg, near 
Rudolstadt. Its purpose is thus briefly indicated by himself: — "To take the 
oversight of children before they are ready for school life ; to exert an influence 
over their whole being in correspondence with its nature; to strengthen their 
bodily powers ; to exercise their senses ; to employ the awakening mind ; to 
make them thoughtfully acquainted with the Avorld of nature and of man ; to 
guide their heart and soul in a right direction, and lead them to the Origin of 
all life and to union with Ilira." To secure those objects, the child must be 
placed under the influence of a properly trained governess for a portion of the 
day after reaching the age of three. 

Fi'cebel differs from Pestalozzi, who thought that the mother, as the natural 
educator of the child, ought to retain the sole charge up to the sixth or seventh 
year. This necessarily narrows the child's experience to the family circle, and 
excludes in many cases the mutual action and reaction of children upon each 
other — under conditions most favorable to development. Mr. Payne erabodiea 
the genesis of Fruebel's system in his own mind as follows : 

Let us imagine Froebel taking his place amidst a number of children disport- 
ing themselves in the open air without any check upon their movements. After 
^looking on the pleasant scene awhile, he breaks out into a soliloquy : 

" What exuberant life ! What mimeasurable enjoj'racnt ! What unbounded 
activity ! What an evolution of physical forces ! What a harmony between the 
inner and the outer life ! What happiness, health, and strength ! Let me look 
a little closer. What are these children doing ? The air rings musically with 
their shouts and joyous laughter. Some are running, jumping, or bounding 
along, with eyes like the eagle's bent upon its fjrey, after the ball which a 
dexterous hit of the bat sent flying among them ; others are bending down 
towards the ring filled with marbles, and endeavoring to dislodge them from 
their position ; others are running friendly races with their hoops ; others again, 
with arras laid across each other's shoulders, are quietly walking and talking 
together upon some matter in which they evidently have a common interest. 
Their natural fun gushes out from eyes and lips. 1 hear what they say. It is 
simply expressed, amusing, generally intelligent, and often even witty. But 
thei'e is a small group of children yonder. They seem eagerly intent on some 
subject. What is it 1 I see one of them has taken a fruit from his pocket. He 
is sliowing it to his fellows. They look at it and admire it. It is new to them. 
They wish to know more about it — to handle, smell, and taste it. The owner 
gives it into their hands ; they, feel and smell, but do not taste it. Tlioy give it 
back to the owner, his right to it being generally admitted. He bites it, the 
rest looking eagerly on to watch the result. His face shows that he likes the 
taste; his eyes grow brighter with satisfaction. The rest desire to make his 
experience their own. He sees their desire, breaks or cuts the fruit in pieces, 
which he distributes among them. He adds to his own pleasure by sharing in 
theirs. Suddenly a loud shout from some other part of the ground attracts the 
attention of the group, which scatters in all directions- Let me now consider. 
What does all this manifold movement — this exhibition of spontaneous energy — 
really mean ? To me it seems to have a profound meaning. 

" It means — 

"1. That there is an immense external development and expansion of 
energy of various kinds — physical, intellectual, and moral. Limbs, senses, 
lungs, tongues, minds, hearts, are all at work — all cooperating to produce the 
general effect. 

• Lecture delivered at the College of Preceptors at London, Feb. 25th, 1874, by Joseph Pajne, 
Professor of the Science and Art of Education to the College. 



^2 'i'il^ KINDERGARTEN SYSTEM. 

" 2. That activity— doing — is the common characteristic of this development 
of force. 

" 3. That spontaneity — absolute freedom from outward control — appears to 
be both impulse and law to the activity. 

"4. That the harmonious coml)ination and interaction of spontaneity and 
activity constitute the happiness which is apparent. The will to do prompts 
the doing ; the doing reacts on the will. 

" 5. That the resulting happiness is independent of the absolute value of the 
exciting cause. A bit of stick, a stone, an apple, a marble, a hoop, a top, as 
soon as they become objects of interest, call out the activities of the whole being 
quite as effectually as if they were matters of the greatest intrinsic value. It is 
the action upon them — the doing something with them — that invests them with 
interest. 

" 6. That this spontaneous activity generates happiness because the result is 
gained by the children's own efforts, without external interference. What they 
do themselves and for themselves, involving their own personal experience, and 
therefore exactly measured by their own capabilities, interests them. What 
another, of trained powers, standing on a different platform of advancement, 
does for them, is com])aratively uninteresting. If such a person, from whatever 
motive, interferes with their spontaneous activity, he arrests the movement of 
their forces, quenches their interest, at least for the moment ; and they resent 
the interference. 

" Such, then, appear to be the manifold meanings of the boundless spontaneou.s 
activity that I witness. But what name, after all, must I give to the totality of 
the phenomena exhibited before me? I must call them Play. Play, then, is 
spontaneous activity ending in the satisfaction of the natural desire of the child 
for pleasure — for happiness. Play is the natural, the appropriate business and 
occupation of the child left to his own resources. The child that does not play, is 
not a perfect child. He wants something — sense oi'gan, limb, or generally what 
we imply by the term health — to make up our ideal of a child. The healthy 
child plays — plays continually — cannot but play. 

" But has this instinct for play no deeper significance ? Is it appointed by the 
Supreme Being merely to fill up time — merely to form an occasion for fruitless 
exercise? — merely to end in itself No! I see now that it is the constituted 
means for the unfolding of all the child's powers. It is through play that he 
learns the use of his limbs, of all his bodily organs, and with this use gains 
health and strength. Through play he comes to know the external world, the 
physical qualities of the objects which surround him, their motioi*6, action, and 
re-action upon each other, and the relation of these phenomena to himself; a 
knowledge which forms the basis of that which will be his permanent stock for 
life. Through play, involving associateship and combined action, he begins to 
recognize moral relations, to feel that he cannot live for himself alone, that he is 
a member of a community, whose rights he must acknowledge if his own are to 
be acknowledged. In and through play, moreover, he learns to contrive means 
for securing his ends; to invent, construct, discover, investigate, to bring by 
imagination the remote near, and, further, to translate the language of facts 
into the language of words, to learn the conventionalities of his mother tongue. 
Play, then, I see, is the means by which the entire being of the child develops 
and grows into power, and, therefore, does not end in itself. 

"But an agency which effects results like these is an education agency; and 
Plaij, therefore, resolves itself into education; education which is inde'pendent of 
the formal teacher, which the child virtually gains for and by himself. This, 
then, is the outcome of all that I have observed. The child, through the spon- 
taneous activity of all his natural forces, is really developing and strengthening 
them for future use ; he is working out his own education. 

" But what do I, who am constituted by the demands of society as the formal 
educator of these children, learn from the insight I have thus gained into their 
nature ? I learn this — that I must educate them in conformity with that nature. 
I must continue, not supersede, the course already begun ; my own course must 
be based upon it. I must recognize and adopt the principles involved in it, 
and frame my laws of action accordingly. Above all, I must not neutralize and 
deaden that spontaneity which is the mainspring of all the machinerv ; I must 
rather encourage it, while ever opening new fields for its exercise, and giving it 



THE KINDERGARTEN SYSTEM. 93 

new directions. Plaj', spontaneous play, is the education of little children ; but 
it is not the whole of their education. Their life is not to be made up of play. 
Can 1 not tlien even now gradually transform their play into work, but work 
which shall look like play ? — work which shall originate in the same or similar 
impulses, and exercise the same energies as 1 see employed in tiieir own amuse- 
ments and occupations 1 Play, however, is a random, desultory education. It 
lays the essential basis ; but it does not raise the superstructure. It requires to 
be OH'-anizad for this purpose, but so organized that the superstructure shall be 
strictlV related and conformed to the original lines of th" foundation. 

" / see that these children delight in movement ; — they are always walking, or 
running, jumping, hopping, tossing their limbs about, and, moreover, they are 
pleased with rythmical movement. I can contrive motives and means for the 
same exercise of the limbs, which shall result in increased physical power, and 
consequently in health — shall train the children to a conscious and measured 
command of their bodily functions, and at the same time be accompanied by the 
attraction of rythmical sound through song or instrument. 

"/ see that they use their senses; but merely at the accidental solicitation of 
surrounding circumstances, and therefore imperfectly. I can contrive means for 
a definite education of the senses, which shall result in increased quickness of 
vision, hearing, touch, etc. I can train the purblind eye to take note of delicate 
shades of color, the dull ear to appreciate the minute differences of sound. 

"/ see that they observe ; but their observations are for the most part transitory 
and indefinite, and often, therefore, comparatively unfruitful. I can contrive 
means for concentrating their attention by exciting curiosity and interest, and 
educate them in the art of observing. They will thus gain clear and definite 
perceptions, bright images in the place of blurred ones, — will learn to recognize 
the difference between complete and incomplete knowledge, and gradually 
advance from the stage of mei-ely knowing to that of knowing that they know. 

" 1 see that iheij invent and construct; but often awkwardly and aimlessly. I 
can avail myself of this instinct, and open to it a definite field of action. I 
shall prompt them to invention, and train them in the art of construction. 
The materials I shall use for this end, will be simple ; but in combining them 
together for a purpose, they will enjoy not only their knowledge of form, but 
their im \gination of the capabilities of form. In various ways I shall prompt 
them to invent, construct, contrive, imitate, and in doing so develop their nascent 
taste for symmetry and beauty. 

"And so in respect to other domains of that child-action which we call play, I 
see that I can make these domains also my own. I can convert children's activi- 
ties, energies, amusements, occupations, all that go»s by the name of play, into 
instruments for my purpose, and, therefore, transform play into Avork. This 
work will be education in the true sense of the term. The conception of it as 
such I have gained from the children themselves. They have taught me how I 
am to teach them. 

frcebel's theory in practice. 
I must endeavor to give some notion of the manner in which Frcebcl reduced 
his theory to practice. In doing this, the instances I bring forward must be 
considered as typical. If you admit — and you can hardly do otherwise — the 
reasonableness of the theor}% as founded on the nature of things, you can hardly 
doubt that thei'C is some method of carrying it out. Now, a method of educa- 
tion involves many processes, all of which must represent more or less the 
principles which form the basis of the method. It is quite out of my power, for 
want of time, to describe the various processes which exhibit to us the little child 
pursuing his education by walking to rhythmic measure, by gymnastic exercises 
generally, learning songs by heart and singing them, pi'actising his senges with a 
definite purpose, observing the properties of objects, counting, getting notions of 
color and form, drawing, building with cubical blocks, modeling in wax or clay, 
braiding slips of various colored paper after a pattern, pricking or cutting forms 
in paper, curving wire into different shapes, folding a sheet of paper 'md gaining 



94 THE KINDERGARTEN SYSTEM. 

elementary notions of geometry, learning the resources of the mother-tongue by 
hearing and relating stories, fables, etc., dramatizing, guessing riddles, working in 
the garden, etc., etc. These are only some of the activities naturally exhibited 
by young children, and these the teacher of young children is to employ for his 
purpose. As, however, they are so numerous, I may well be excused for not 
even attempting to enter minutely into them. But there is one series of objects 
and exercises therewith connected, expressly devised by Frcebel to teach the art 
of observing, to which, as being typical, I will now direct your attention. He 
calls these objects, which are gradually and in orderly succession introduced to 
the child's notice, Gifts, — a pleasant name, which is, however, a mere accident 
of the system : they might equally well be called by any other name. 

GIFTS FOR THE CULTURE OF OBSERVATION. 

As introductory to the series, a ball made of wool, of say a scarlet color, is 
placed before the baby. It is rolled along before him on the table, thrown along 
the floor, tossed into the air, suspended from a string, and used as a pendulum, 
or spun around on its axis, or made to describe a circle in space, etc. It is then 
given into his hand ; he attempts to grasp it, fails ; tries again, succeeds ; rolls 
it along the floor himself, tries to throw it, and, in short, exercises every power 
he has upon it, always pleased, never wearied in doing something or other with 
it. This is play, but it is play which resolves itself into education. He is gain- 
ing notions of color, form, motion, action and re-action, as well as of musculai" 
sensibility. And all the while the teacher associates words with things and 
actions, and, by constantly employing words in their proper sense and in the 
immediate presence of facts, initiates the child in the use of his mother-tongue. 
Thus, in a thousand ways, the scarlet ball furnishes sensations and perceptions 
for the substratum of the mind, and suggests fitting language to express them ; 
and even the baby appears before us as an observer, learning the properties of 
things by personal experience. 

Then comes the first Gift. It consists of six soft woolen balls of six different 
colors, three primary and three secondary. One of these is recognized as like, 
the others as unlike, th« ball first known. The laws of similarity and dis- 
crimination are called into action ; sensation and perception grow clearer and 
stronger. I cannot particularize the numberless exercises that are to be got out 
of the various combinations of these six balls. 

The second Gift consists of a sphere, cube, and cylinder, made of hard wood. 
What was a ball before, is now called a sphere. The different material gives 
rise to new experiences ; a sensation, that of hardness, for instance, takes 
the place of softness ; while varieties of form suggest resemblance and contrast. 
Similar experiences of likeness and unlikeness are suggested by the behavior of 
these different objects. The easy rolling of the sphere, the sliding of the cube, 
the rolling as well as sliding of the cylinder, illustrate this point. Then the 
examination of the cube, especially its surfaces, edges, and angles, which any 
child can obsei-ve for himself, suggest new sensations and their resulting per- 
ceptions. At the same time, notions of space, time, form, motion, relativity 
in general, take their place in the mind, as the unshajied blocks which, when 
fitly compacted together, will lay the firm foundation of the 'understanding. 
These elementary notions, as the very groundwork of mathematics, w'ill be seen 
to have their use as time goes on. 

The third Gift is a large cube, making a whole, which is divisible into eight 



( THE KINDERGAKTEN SYSTEM. gg, 

-mall ones. The form is recognized as that of the cube before seen; the size is 
different. But the new experiences consist in notions of relativity^-of the whole 
■ a its relation to the parts, of the parts in their relation to the whole ; and thus 
the child acquires the notion and the names, and both in immediate connection 
with the sensible objects, of halves, quarters, eighths, and of how many of the 
small divisions make one of the larger. But in connection with the third Gift a 
new faculty is called forth — imagination, and with it the instinct of construction 
is awakened. The cubes are mentally transformed into blocks ; and with them 
building commences. The constructive faculty suggests imitation, but rests not 
in imitation. It invents, it creates. Those eight cubes, placed in a certain 
relation to each other, make a long scat, or a seat with a back, or a throne for 
the Queen ; or again, a cross, a doorway, etc. Thus does even play exhibit the 
characteristics of art, and "conforms (to use Bacon's words) the outward show 
of things to the desires of the mind" ; and thus the child, as I said before, not 
merely imitates, but creates. And here, I may remark, that the mind of the 
child is far less interested in that which another mind has embodied in ready pre- 
pared forms, than in the forms which he conceives, and gives outward expression 
to, himself. He wants to employ his own mind, and his whole mind, upon the 
object, and does not thank you for attempting to deprive him of his rights. 

The fourth, fifth, and sixth Gifts consist of the cube variouslj^ divided into 
solid parallelepipeds, or brick-shaped forms, and into smaller cubes and prisms. 
Observation is called on with increasing strictness, relativity apprediated, and 
the opportunity affoi'ded for endless manifestations of constructiveness. And 
all the while impressions are forming in the mind, which, in due time, will bear 
geometrical fruits, and fruits, too, of Eesthetic culture. The dawning sense of 
the beautiful, as well as of the true, is beginning to gain consistency and power. 

I cannot further dwell on the numberless modes of manipulation of which 
these objects are capable, nor enter further into the groundwork of principles 
on which their efficiency depends. 

OBJECTIONS TO THE SYSTEM CONSIDERED. 

It is said, for instance, without proof, that we demand too much from little 
children, and, with the best intentions, take them out of their depth. This 
might be true, no doubt, if the system of means adopted had any other basis 
than the nature of the children ; if we attempted theoretically, and without 
regard to that nature, to determine ourselves what they can and what they can- 
not do ; but when we constitute spontaneity as the spring of action, and call 
on them to do that, and that only, which they can do, which they do of their 
own accord when they are educating themselves, it is clear that the objection 
falls to the ground. The child who teaches himself never can go out of his 
depth ; the work he actually does is that which he has strength to do ; the load 
he carries cannot but be fitted to the shoulders that bear it, for he has gradually 
accumulated its contents by his own repeated exertions. This increasing burden 
is, in short, the index and result of his increasing powers, and commensurate 
with them. The objector in this case, in order to gain even a plausible foothold 
for his objection, must first overthrow the radical principle, that the activities, 
amusements, and occupations of the child, left to himself, do indeed constitute 
his earliest education, and that it is an education which he virtually gives himself. 

Another side of this objection, Avhich is not unfrequently presented to us, 
derives its plausibility from the assumed incapacity of children. The objector 
points to this child or that, and denounces him as stupid and incapable. Can 



96 THE KINDERGARTEN SYSTEM. 

the objector, however, take upon himself to declare that this or that child has 
not been made stupid even by the very means employed to teach him ? The 
test, however, is a practical one : Can the child play ? If he can play, in the 
sense which I have given to the word, he cannot be stupid. In his play he 
employs the very faculties which are required for his formal education. " But 
he is stupid at his books." If this is so, then the logical conclusion is, that the 
books have made him stupid, and you, the objector, who have misconceived his 
nature, and acted in direct contradiction to it, are yourself responsible for this. 

"But he has no memory. He cannot learn what I tell him to learn." No 
memory ! Cannot learn ! Let us put that to the test. Ask him about the 
pleasant holiday a month ago, when he went nutting in the woods. Does he 
remember nothing about the fresh feel of the morning air, the joyous walk to 
the wood, the sunshine which streamed about his path, the agreeable companions 
with whom he chatted on the way, the incidents of the expedition, the climb up 
the trees, the bagging of the plunder ? Are all these matters clean gone out of 
his mind 1 " Oh, no, he remembers things like these." Then he has a memory, 
and a remarkably good one. He remembers because he was intepested ; and if 
you wish him to remember your lessons, you must make them interesting. He 
will certainly learn what he takes an interest in. 

I need not deal with other objections. They all resolve themselves into the 
category of ignorance of the nature of the child. When public opinion shall 
demand such knowledge from teachers as the essential condition of their taking 
in hand so delicate and even profound an art as that of training children, all 
these objections will cease to have any meaning. 

My close acquaintance with Frcebel's theory, and especially with his root-idea, 
is comparatively recent. But when I had studied it as a theory, and witnessed 
something of its practice, I could not but see at once that I had been throughout 
an unconscious disciple, as it were, of the eminent teacher. The plan of my 
own course of lectures on the Science and Art of Education was, in fact, con- 
structed in thought before I had at all grasped the Frobelian idea ; and was, in 
that sense, independent of it. 

The Kindergarten is gradually making its way in England, without the 
achievement as yet of any eminent success; but in Switzerland, Holland, Italy, 
and the United States, as well as in Germany, it is rapidly advancing. Wher- 
ever the principles of education, as distinguished from its practice, are a matter 
of study and thought, there it prospers. Wherever, as in England for the most 
part, the practical alone is considered, and where teaching is thought to be "as 
easy as lying," any system of education founded on psychological laws must be 
tardy in its progress. 

"The Kindergarten has not only to supply the proper materials and oppor- 
tunities for the innate mental powers, which, like leaves and blossoms in the 
bud, press forward and impel the children to activity, with so touch the more 
energy the better they are supplied. It has also to preserve children from the harm 
of civilisation, which furnishes poison as well as food, temptations as well as 
salvation ; and children must be kept from this trial till their mental powers 
have grown equal to its dangers. Much of the success of the Kindergarten 
(invisible at the time) is negative, and consists in preventing harm. Its posi- 
tive success, again, is so simple, that it cannot be expected to attract more notice 
than, for instance, does fresh air, pure water, or the merit of a physician who 
keeps a femily in health." — Karl Froebel. 



FROEBEL AND HIS EDUCATIONAL WORK. 97 



CRITICAL MOMENTS IN THE LIFE OF FROEBEL, BY BAROP. 

" At the end of twenty years," said Barop, when we were talking of the 
early history of Keilhau, "we were in a very critical position. You 
know we had little outward means at our command when we began our 
enterprise. Later, Middendorff offered his paternal inheritance; but the 
acquisllio.i of the land, and the erection of the necessary buildings, 
required considerable funds, so that Middendorfif's contribution soon van- 
ished like drops of water that fall on a hot stove. My father in law. 
Christian Ludwig Froebel, stepped in and gave Avhat he could iulo the 
hands of his brother, without any conditions; but even his offerings could 
not hold at bay care and want. My father was a wealthy man, but he was 
so displeased at my joining the Frocbelian circle and settling at Keilhau 
that he atiorded mc no support of any kind. Distrust surrounded us on 
all sides in those first years ; both open and .secret enmities from far and 
near tried to embitter our life and check our efforts in the germ. Not 
the less did the institution bloom out quickly and gloriously, but was 
brought later to the verge of ruin by the well directed persecutions 
against the Burschenschaften (an association of students for patriotic pur 
poses); for the spirit of 1815 was incarnated in the institution, and just 
that spirit was exposed to the most extreme opposition. It would carry 
me too far if I were to describe this fully. It seemed to me at that time 
as if the enemy would really conquer. The number of" our pupils (origi- 
nally thirty) had diminished to five or six, and, consequently, the vanish- 
ing little revenue increased the burden of debts to a height that made us 
dizzy. From all sides the creditors rushed in, urged on by the attorneys, 
who washed their hands in our misery. Froebel vanished through the 
back door up the mountain when the duns appeared, and it was left to 
Middendorflf to quiet most of them, in a degree which only he can believe 
possible who has been acquainted with MiddcndorfT's influence over men. 
On {he side of the workmen who had to ask for money, there were 
touching scenes of re.'^ignation, confidence, and magnanimity. A lock- 
smith, for instance, was required by an attorney to 'bring a suit against 
the churls,' since nothing was to be got from them and their destruction. 
The locksmith, enraged, refused to assault our persons, and retorted that 
he had rather lose his hardly earned money than to doubt our lionorable 
intentions, and that nothing was further from his purpose than to increase 
our troubles. Ah! and this trouble was hard to bear, for Middendorff 
was already married, and I was following his example. When I asked 
my wife for her hand, my father and mother in law asked: 'but you will 
not remain at Keilhau?' ' Yes,' I replied. 'The thought for which we 
are living appears to me important and suited to the times, and I do not 
doubt that men will be found who will trust us to carry out the idea cor- 
rectly, as we trust the Invisible One.' In fact, in spite of all obstacles, we 
have never for a moment lost faith in our educational mission, and even 
the worst dilemma at that time saw no wavering band of men in this 
valley. 7 



98 FEOEBEL AND HIS EDUCATIONAL WORK. 

[I will insert here a note which I find in a Wichard Lauge's edition 
of Middeudorff's writings, for if more than justice is done to one man, it 
is probable that less than justice will be done to another, or to others.] 

" In the last years of his life Froebel lived at jNIarienthal, apart from the 
family circle of Keilhau, and here founded his training school. Here 
he had to bear the burden of the housekcopiug and other inconveniences, 
and he determined to marry again, to give his pupils motherly care and 
sympathy. He married a trusted pupil, who had endeared herself to him, 
and who had accompanied him to Marienthal from the beginning. He 
stood at the marriage altar again, then in his seventieth year, for the 
second time, and sometime before he had said to me that it was in fact ' a 
living union.' The marriage excited bad blood in the beginning among 
the members of the family, and made a quarrel, which had alreaily arisen, 
much worse. This difference between him and those (Middeudorff ex- 
cepted) who had worked v;ith him in earlier times, indeed, at his call, had 
willingly shown themselves capable of the greatest self-sacrifice and devo- 
tion, was easily explained. Once for all, Froebel's brother. Christian 
Lewis, Middendorflf, and Barop, had one attribute of character which was 
wanting in Froebel, — a stern consciousness in the fulfillment of past obli- 
gations. But Froebel turned away from all the obstacles and difficulties 
that obstructed his activity with an ingenious facility, was often highly 
impractical and thoughtless, and did not allow himself to be essentially 
disturbed by the pressure upon his creditors. If this had not been com- 
pensated by the« opposite quality in his fellow-workers, both men and 
women, he must, in my opinion, have been wrecked very early upon 
the hard, inflexible rock of reality. But the others held on to him, and 
desired for the progressing old man that there should be a limit set to the 
eternal, restless life and striving at various points in Germany and Swit- 
zerland, which was not unlike one kind of vagabondage, and something 
whole and perfected in itself should be done at one point. The care for 
his own increasing troop of children called for foresight and economy. 
As he had contempt for every other kind of opposition, so he also had for 
those which grew up in his family; indeed, in the resentment which 
opposing difficulties always excited in him, he was fabulously unjust to 
the persons from whom they sprung. His expressions against his own 
brother, who was simple human greatness personified, a living magna- 
nimity, and against my mother-in-law, who had stood by him from early 
youth, were often of so revolting a kind that 1 could not refrain from 
opposing him in the most decided manner. Middcndorff suffered infi- 
nitely on these occasions. He could not blame the actions of his own 
family, but he tried as faithfully to turn aside the slightest aspersion 
against the man whose personality, life, and action, fettered him with 
magic power. They both rest under grassy mounds; the inseparable 
ones, — Froebel and Middendorflf. Diesterweg apostrophized the latter, — 
pia anima, anima Candida; never- tobe-forgotten friend! Great men 
have great weaknesses; the shady side, belonging to their finite nature, 
dies with them; but what they have thought, lived, and striven for 
remains for posterity. Froebel himself often acknowledged with deep 



FROEBEL AND HIS EDUCATIONAL WORK. 99 

regret that lie knew himself to be full of faults and weaknesses. Indeed, 
he even thought the eternal Spirit had selected so miserable an instru- 
ment for the bearer of his idea in order that it might be clearly seen that 
it is the idea and not the man by which what is lasting and blessed for 
humanity is offered. 

" The institution at Marienthal made its beautiful and sacred progress, 
and the second wife of Froebel fulfilled her task excellently. Every one 
who has seen Maiionlhal, and realized the impulse given there, will have 
wondered at her judicious and fervent and inspiring life among her pupils, 
as well as at that attractive power which the Froebelian cause may exert 
upon the unspoiled womanly feelings. The dii-ect personal influence of 
Troebel was astonishingly great. He knew how to penetrate to the deep- 
est deptlis of the souls of his hearers; he could transform and make thcni 
young again, root out the taste for external things, and thoroughly banish 
trifling from the life, and in their place set a deepl3'^-moral, earnest, and 
entlmsiastic striving. When I saw him speaking and working among 
his pupils tlie following thought possessed me: One may think this or 
that upon the activity and efficiency of Froebel, ascribe to this or that 
correctness, discover in it greater or less influence, — one thing stands fast; 
he is the apostle of women, Ihe reformer of home education." 

"When our trouble was greatest, new prospects opened upon us. At 
the instigation of several influential friends who stood by us, the attention 
of tho Duke of Meiningen was fixed upon ns. He became acquainted 
with Froebel, and asked him about his plans. Froebel laid before him 
the plan of an educational institution worked out and agreed upon by us 
in common, in which should be taught not only the usual things, but 
manual labor, joiner's work, basket work, bookbinding, tillage, etc., etc., 
should be used as means of culture. During half the school-time there 
was to be study, and during the other half, with the limbs. This work 
was to give direct material for instruction, and, above all things, excite in 
tlie mind of the cfiild the desire for learning and explanation, so as to 
stimulate and strengthen the mind for invention and practical work. The 
awakening of this desire, this impulse to learn and to create, was one of 
the fundamental thoughts of Frederich F'roebel. Illustration, in the Pes- 
talozzian sense, was not far reaching and deep-reaching enough, and he 
endeavored to look upon man radically as a creative, not merely receptive, 
but chiefly as a productive being. We had not been able to realize the 
thought at Kcilhau, because the means for working out technical instruc- 
tion were specially wanting to the pupils. But with the help of the Duke 
of Meiningen the boldest of our hopes seemed likely to be satisfied. The 
preparation of the above-mentioned plan led to many technical construc- 
tions which already contained the elements of the Kindergarten plays. 
They are mostly lost and destroyed, but the plan has remained. I will 
look it up for the use and advantage of the cause, when wanted. The 
Duke of Meiningen was very well satisfied with Froebel's explanations, 
and particularly with the straightforward and open hearted way in which 
they were given. There was an agreement by which Froebel was 
promised for educational purposes the estate at Helba, with thirty acres 
of land, and an annual grant of 1,000 gulden. It may be incidentally 



100 FROEBEL AND HIS EDUCATIONAL WORK. 

mentioned that tlie duke consulted Froebel about the education of his 
heir. Froebel told him frankly that nothing would come out of the 
future ruler if he was not educated in compauionshqi with others. The 
duke followed his advice. The prince was taught and disciplined in 
common with other boys. 

" When Froebel returned from Meiningen, the whole circle was highly 
pleased, but the joy was not to last long. A prominent man, in the 
Meiningen region, the autocrat, as it were, in educational matters, because he 
was on that subject the right hand of the prince,— a man who also had his 
merits in literary respects, and who had not been taken into consultation, 
w^as afraid of losing his commanding influence by the springing up of 
Froebel. We were suddenly again beset with the most degrading and 
hateful public and secret accusations, to which our precarious position in 
Keilhau offered welcome, and, alas! more than sufficient plausibility. 
Tlie duke had secretly a flea put into his ear. lie began to waver, turned 
suddenly upon Froebel, and demanded a proviso of about tv.-enty pupils 
for an indefinite time. Froebel saw the design of this, and was put out 
of tune; for where he scented mistrust he immediately gave up all hope, 
and he dashed out of his mind what had a few liouVs before filled him 
with enthusiasm. He broke off all negotiations, and started off to Frank- 
forton the Main in order to impart to his friends of former times there 
the results of his action, for he had become perplexed by the many obsta- 
cles. Here he luckily met the well-known musical composer, Schnyder 
von Wartensee. He told this man of his recent experiences and his plans, 
and exercised over that artist those electrifying and inspiring influences 
peculiar to his creative nature. Schnyder knew how to estimate his 
efforts, and offered him his castle of Wartensee, in Switzerland, for an 
educational institution. Froebel eagerly and joyfully grasped the hand 
which was offered him, and set out for Wartensee with his nephew Fer- 
dinand, my brother in law. 

"There Frederich and Ferdinand Froebel resided and worked a long 
time, when I (B.) was asked by my fellow members of the educational 
circle to inform myself precisely of the situation of things in Switzerland. 
With ten dollars in my pocket, and an old summer coat, which I wore, 
and a threadbare dress-coat, which I carried with me, I trudged off on 
foot. Should I tell you how I fought my way, I should probal)ly excite 
in you a suspicion of stark exaggeration. Enough; I arrived, inquired in 
the surrounding regions about my friends and their activity, and heard that 
nothing further had been charged to the 'heretics' than that tlioy were 
' heretics.' Some peasant children of the neighboring regions had been 
found; but they did not meet the strangers whom they had judged in the 
beginning by their outward condition. The agitation of the clergy, which 
began as soon as the institution could be called such, and which becarne 
the greater the more our friends stood firmly on their feet, had its effect, 
and prevented a quick growth of our enterprise. Besides, the ground 
for our enterprise was not found at Wartensee. Schnyder liad, with a 
generosity which cannot be too much praised, not only placed his castle 
at our disposal, but even the inventory of its contents, — his silver plate, 
his glorious library, in short, everything that was in and about the castle; 



FROEBEL AND HIS EDUCATIONAL WORK. 101 

but lie would permit no building of any kind to be erected, and. as the 
room was in no way sufTicient for us, we could only make a temporary 
and passing use of bis sujiport. 

"We saw the precariousness of our position in its whole sharpness, but 
knew of no escape from it. 

"In a wonderful way new prospects opened before us at a moment 
when we least expected it. We were sitting in a hotel near Wartensee, 
and conversing with the strangers who were there about our efforts. 
Three travelers were quite transfixed by our representations. They said 
they were merchants known at Willisau, and declared expressly that they 
were disposed to work for us and our efforts in Willisau, and to make a set- 
tlement there themselves, and carry out our plans to a greater extent. The 
company had traded in the cantonal government, and had for that reason 
moved, provisionally, into a castle like building. About forty pupils out 
of the canton immediately entered, and we seemed at least to have fouud 
what we were seeking. But the enraged pastors rose now with truly 
devilish power against us. Our lives were not safe, and we were warned 
several times by compassionate souls, if we thought of taking a solitary 
walk, or struck out into a road over the mountain. To what fearful 
measures the bigotry extended, the following occurrence shows: 

" In Willisau, every year, a church festival takes place, in which a host 
spotted with blood is shown. The drops of blood, according to the pop- 
ular belief, were drawn out by two gamblers, who, cursing Jesus, drew 
their swords upon him, and who, in consequence of this crime, were 
caught by the devil. When the ' God be with us ' seized the miscreant by 
the throat, a few drops oozed from Jesus's wounds. Now, in order that 
other drops should not fall in a similar manner from the miscreant, a 
thanksgiving festival is celebrated every year, and the host shown, for a 
warning, to the worshipping people, who stream in in troops from the 
whole country to join the procession. We were obliged to attend the fes- 
tival, and, in order to have something to do, we had undertaken the 
musical direction of it. I anticipated a storm, and had urged my friends 
to keep quiet under all circumstances, and to show no trace of embarrass- 
ment. The singing was finished, and, in place of the expected clergyman, 
there appeared suddenly a boisterous, fanatical Capuchin monk. He 
entered into complaint of the godlessness and wickedness of the present 
generation, painted in glowing colors the stripes of hell which would hit 
the cursed race, then turned to the terrified Willisauers and explained 
pointedly as one of the evil deeds of that people, that, by calling in the 
heretics, meaning us, of course, they had brought ruin into their midst. 
More and more violent were his words, more and more ghastly his curses 
upon us and our abettors, more and more terrific his descriptions of the 
stripes of hell prepared for the Willisauers for their abhorrent deed, 
Froebel stood benumbed, without moving a limb or withdrawing his gaze 
from the Capuchin just opposite to him, standing in the midst of the 
people; and the rest of us looked on motionless. The parents, our pupils, 
and many others, had already fled in the midst of this Jeremiad. We 
expected the worst for ourselves, and had already taken precautions for 
our protection, and measures to overcome the brawler. But we stood 



102 FROEBEL AND HIS EDUCATIONAL WORK 

quietly in our places and heard the closing words of tlic Capuchin- ' Then, 
if you would earn eternal treasures in heaven, make an end to the griev- 
ance, and suffer the wretches no longer in your midst Hunt the wolves 
out of the country, to the honor of God and the confusion of the devil! 
Then peace and blessing will return, and great joy will be with God in 
heaven and with those who serve Him and His holy One from their 
hearts! Amen! ' Scarcely had he spoken the last word when he vanished 
through a side dooi-, and was not seen again. But we passed quietly 
through the gaping and threatening crowd. No hand was raised at the 
moment; but mischief lowered upon us from all sides, and it was not 
pleasant to see the sword of Damocles already suspended over our heads. 
With this painful feeling of insecurity they sent me to the government of 
the canton, and especially to the Abbe Girard, and the justice of the 
peace, Edward Pfyffer, with a petition that he would protect our safety 
to the best of his power. On the way 1 was known at a tavern as one of 
the lately-oppressed band of heretics, by a clergyman. They whispered 
about me, and cast threatening and contemptuous glances at me from all 
sides. At last the priest became more and more audacious, and accused 
me aloud of being an abominable heretic. I arose slowly, advanced with 
a firm step toward the black-coat, and asked him : ' Do you know who 
^esus Christ was, sir?' and, 'Do you hold anylLing from Him?' 
'Surely; He is God — the Son, and we must honor Him and believe in 
Him, if we do not wish to be eternally damned!' 1 continued, — 'You 
can, perhaps, tell me whether Christ was a Catholic or a Protestant?' 
The priest was silent; the crowd gaped and soon applauded me. The 
priest left, and they let me alone. The question had effected more than 
a whole speech would have done. In Edward PfyiTer I learned to know 
a man of humane and firm character, of sterling worth, and worthy of all 
respect. He goes upon the principle that it is not of much use to take 
this or that superstition from the people, but that one must work against 
sluggishness of thought and want of independence from the foundation 
through an intelligent education. For that reason he esteemed our under- 
taking highly. When I gave him an outline of our griefs, and the danger 
we incurred in our lives, he replied; 'There is only one way to make 
yourselves secure, — you must win the hearts of the people. Work on for 
a long time, and then invite all the people from far and near to a public 
examination. If you pass through that trial and win the multitude, then, 
and only then, will you be secure.' 1 went back, and we followed his 
counsel. A great crowd of people from the various cantons streamed in 
to the examination, and delegates from Zurich, Berne, etc. Our battle 
with the clergy, particularly, was an occurrence that was spoken of in 
most of the Swiss papers, and the genei'al attention had been directed to 
it. We conquered perfectly at the examination. The boys developed a 
happy state of mind and a warmth of zeal; indeed, they answered in 
such an unembarrassed and inoffensive manner that all present were 
delightedly surprised and gave us loud applauses. The examination 
lasted from seven o'clock in the morning till seven in the evening, and 
closed with social plays and gymnastic exercises. We rejoiced inVardly, 
for our cause was now to be considered established. The thing came to 



FKOEBEL AND HIS EDUCATIONAL WORK. 103 

public action, to public notice, and the most brilliant speeches were made 
in our favor by Pfyffer, Amryu, and others. The assembly made a decree 
that the castle-like educational building should be given to us at a reason- 
able price, and tliat the Capuchins, who had publicly made such an uproar 
against us, should be showed out of the canton." 

' ' Some time after the above-mentioned examination appeared a deputation 
from the canton of Berne, and invited Froebel to undertake the erection 
of an orphan-house in Burgdorf. Froebel proposed that the instruction 
in the newly-founded orphan-house should not be restricted to the orphan 
children, gained his object, and followed the summons. 

" Now I looked upon my mission as providentially closed, and I desired 
to go back to Keilhau, for my eldest son was already a year old, and I had 
never yet seen him. Middendorff, therefore, left his family and took my 
place ; he lived four years in Willisau away from his wife and child. In 
Keilhau things had, in the meantime, worked more favorably, and the 
attendance had increased in a joyful manner. I resolved now to raise the 
mother institution out of its economical swamp. I set in motion an 
express, even if a permitted swindle, borrowed a sum here to discharge a 
creditor there, and covered up one debt by another. In this manner I 
restored the lost credit, and, as the revenues increased to our delight, I soon 
acquired land, and from that time have been able to support the imder- 
taking of the others more and more, and create for the whole circle a grati- 
fying and increasing sense of stability, and a refuge from all chances. 

" In Switzerland the cause did not develop according to our wishes, in 
spite of the decree of the legislative assembly. The institution in Willisau 
enjoj'ed unlimited confidence, but the opposing agitation of the priesthood 
bloomed in secret afterwards as well as before, and drew much 
animadversion upon the institution from a distance. For this reason we 
could not reach what, under other circumstances, with the activity and 
capacity of self-sacrifice of our circle, might certainly have been possible. 

"Ferdinand Froebel and Middendorff remained in Willisau; Froebel 
went to Burgdorf with his wife, and, a little after, was appointed director 
of the orphan-house by the government. In that capacity he had to con- 
duct a so-called repetition-course for teachers. In that canton was the 
following excellent arrangement : every two years the teachers had a fur- 
lough of a quarter of a year. During this time they assembled in 
Burgdorf and exchanged their experiences and worked at their further 
cultivation. Froebel had to conduct the proceedings and associated studies. 
His own personal experience, and the communications of the teachers, 
led him anew to the conviction that school education is wanting in the 
correct and indispensable foundation, until the reformation of home 
education shall be kept in view and made preliminary. The necessity 
of building up wise mothers came into the foreground in his soul, and the 
importance of the earliest education seemed to him more significant than 
ever. He determined to employ his educational thoughts, whose intelli- 
gent working out a thousand obstacles had prevented, at least to the guid- 
ance of the earliest childhood upon all sides, and to enlist the woman- 
world for this idea and its efficient working. He would supplement the 
'Book for Mothers' (Pestalozzi's) by a theoretico-practical guide for 



104 FROEBEL AND HIS EDUCATIONAL WORK. 

women. Something occurred from without which urged him forward. 
His wife became very dangerously ill, and the physicians required a total 
change from the rough mountain air of Switzerland. Then he determined 
to give up his situation and go to Berlin. The institution at Willisau, 
which flourished outwardly, but was more and more hampered in its 
organic development by the bigotry of the priests, was obliged to be given 
upj for the government went into the hands of the Jesuits. Langethal 
and Ferdinand Froebel were appointed teachers of the institution in Burg- 
dorf. Later, Langethal separated himself from the whole, and undertook 
the direction of a girls' school in Berne which the well-known Frohlich 
now conducts ; in so doing took a step which Froebel never pardoned. Fer- 
dinand Froebel remained director of the orphan-house in Burgdorf until 
his sudden and unexpected death. The general mourning, which had never 
known its equal in Burgdorf, showed what his efforts had been and how 
well they had been understood there. 

"When Frederich Froebel went back from Berlin, the idea of an insti- 
tution for little children was already fully formed in him. I rented him a 
locality in the neighboring Blankenburg. For a long time he could not 
find a name for his cause. Middendorff and I walked over the mountain 
with him to Blankenburg. He exclaimed, repeatedly, ' If I could only 
find a name for my youngest child! ' Suddenly he stood still, as if trans- 
fixed, and his ej'e took an almost transfigured expression. Then he called 
out to the mountain, and called again to all the four winds: ''EvpiiKa] 
Eureka! Kindergarten the institution shall be named! ' " 

So far Barop. He is the only one who now [1861] enjoys the blossoming 
out of the mother institution. He has become wealthy,* and has enjoyed 
many honors. The University of Jena bestowed upon him a doctor's 
diploma at its jubilee, and the Prince of Rudolstadt appointed him Coun- 
cilor of Education. Froebel sleeps in Liebenstein, and liliddendorff at 
the foot of Kirschberg in Keilhau. They sowed and did not reap ; it may 
be, then, that the enjoyment which lies in sowing exceeds that of reaping. 
Certainly it was glorious that Froebel, shortly before his death, was highly 
honored by the Teachers' Convention in Gotha. When he appeared, the 
whole assembly rose like one man; and Middendorff also, shortly before 
his death, had the joy of hearing the same assembly at Salzungen declare 
the Froebel cause to be one of universal importance, and a subject for 
their special attention and continued experiment. 

* By inheritance. 



FKOEBEL AND HIS KDUCATIONAL WORK. 105 



TU Tear 1825. 

KEILHAU. — OFFICIAL TESTIMONY OP SUCCESS.* 

In the article called "Critical moments in the life of Frederick Frffibel," 
I mentioned that the " Universal German Educational Institution " nearly 
came to its complete ruin, in its twentieth year. In another article, 
entitled " Unity of life," I have given some internal causes by which the 
institution, which had once been flourishing, came to the verge of ruin. 
But there were other causes, which perhaps in and by themselves would 
not have been able to bring about such disastrous effects. First, the cross- 
fire of the enemy in the camp and outside of it had that melancholy 
effect. Every one well informed in history knows the dcmagogery of a 
certain Hcrr von Kampz, the persecutions of the Biirgenschafteu, which 
culminated in the death of Kotsebue, in the midst of that twenty 
years. Johannes Arnold Barop was especially the subject of these perse- 
cutions, and as he was already in Keilhau, even if not considered a fellow- 
worker there, when his papers were taken into custody, yet his presence 
there might pass as an excuse for the suspicion entertained of Keilhau. 
Keilhau was represented openly and in secret as the brooding nest of dema- 
gogism, and they stormed from Prussia, and on the day appointed for the 
meeting of the confederates of the Schwarzburg Riidolstadt government, 
they demanded the breaking up of the institution. The government sent 
the then Superintendent Zeh as a committee of inquiry to Keilhau, and 
met the oppressors with the subsequent report. The government left the 
institution unshorn, and only made the famous requisition that the pupils 
of the institution should cut their hair short. But the persecutions none 
the less had their intended effect. A part of the terrified parents, partic- 
ularly the nobles, took their children away, and the institution was crip- 
pled on all sides by the crafty and barefaced agitation of its enemies. In 
1829 the number of pupils diminished, as has already been mentioned, 
from sixty to five. Similar machinations against Keilhau took place at a 
later time, when the general reaction followed the flare up of 1848. At 
that time there was as little occasion for enmity towards Keilhau as in any 
part of the twenty years. 

It scarcely needs to be affirmed in this place that there was not the most 
distant trace of political agitation there. They were only trying to culti- 
vate men in the way which is pointed out quite correctly in the following 
report. The old fighters for freedom, Froebel, Middendorff, and Lange- 
thal, who had learned to esteem each other more and more as Liitzow's fol- 
lowers in the war, naturally hung with great love upon our nation, and 
were trying to cultivate German children. That their efforts were directed 
to building up men in the children, and Germans in the men, constituted 
their whole crime, but still more, that the spirit of 1813-15 had found a 
sort of refuge in Keilhau. 

The devoted teachers were as far from using their efforts at education 

* A Public Voice in 1825 upon the efforts of Frederick Procbel, from W. Lange, Vol. I, 
p. 22. 



106 



FROEBEL AND HIS EDUCATIONAL WORK. 



for political purposes as Sirius is from the earth. But from the year 1819, 
which the yEg is (a newspaper), justly called the "mad year," begins a 
period of German degradation and shame to which the "Universal Ger- 
man Educational Institution " almost fell a sacrifice. The expressions of 
Froebel are interesting which he addressed to Barop in March, 1828, at 
that time. They show that he neither lost courage nor his spirits, and that 
his chief fellow-workers wavered not a moment. " The outer life stands 
quite at the same point of its development, and at this time surrounded 
by a dark night, pregnant with storms, out of whose black clouds every 
moment annihilating lightning threatens to flash. But God has thus far held 
his protecting shield over us with His almighty arm, and so we have lived 
like the little chickens in the thunder storm, under the protecting wing of 
their mother; we have reposed like the child in the tempest in the lap of 
the living, careful, true mother." And at the close he says: "What you 
tell me of the Berlin opinion of Keilhau I well know, but I have nothing 
to say about it. Act firmly on your convictions; you can do It, for more 
and more everything unites and reveals itself to me, and what I believed 
earlier, indeed was convinced of, and was founded only partially on my 
own intuitions, I see ndw in all creation, in the being of things, in nature, 
and in the ordering of the world, and the progressive culture of humanity; 
God in creation, in the order of nature and the world, in the progressive cul- 
ture of humanity, is the source of human education; — this is the funda- 
mental thought of my spiritual inward and outward educational life. On 
this foundation, you as well as I can, with more than Lutheran firmness, 
affirm the rights of nature in education, and so come forward as fighters 
for our educational progress." And as one fellow-worker, Ilerr Carl (who 
afterwards, to the great distress of his associates, was drowned in the 
Saale) was once wavering, he expressed himself sadly in a letter to Barop, 
dated the 18th of February, 1839: "Man is but a weak being; he must 
always rest upon something out of himself, and can so rarely depend upon 
himself; and if he needs to be tried, punished, and strengthened to carry 
out a great thought, he sees the means of trial,' purification, and strength- 
ening are destined to be the destruction of his personality and of himself, 
and then comes back to the original feeling; life is dearer to him than the 
thought; he cannot sacrifice his own little life, his own little personality 
to it; or rather, the show of existence is dearer to him than really, livingly 
to exist." 

So Froebel laid out new plans, excited by the offers of the Duke of 
Meiningen, and expresses himself thus in his last letter: "During the 
short time 1 have been in writing these lines, the thought of my and your 
educational effort has imfolded essentially, while in reference to carrying 
out and representing it, it has receded more and more and grounded 
itself more and more deeply. For a long time the education and handling 
of little children from the third to the seventh year of age has occupied 
my thoughts. A unity in a moment of consecutive thought, together 
with circumstances and other influences has now brought me to the con- 
clusion to erect in Helba, together with the People's Educational Institu- 
tion, an institution for the care and development of children of both 
sexes from three to seven years of age, either orphans or motherless, and 



'FROEBEL AND HIS EDUCATIONAL WORK. 107 

of the middle class. I do not call this institution T)y the name which is 
now given to similar institutions, (that is, little infant cJiildren's scJiooU) 
because it is not to be a scliool, for the children in it will not be schooled, 
but freely developed, because so far as it is possible for men who are 
* aemselves no angels, the God-like in man must be truly guarded and fos- 
tered. I would have orphans, or at least motherless children, because the 
injurious influence of half-cultured parents and of generally uncultivated 
mothers is thus done away Vvith by the very condition of things. I take 
children of both sexes, because children of that age have no sex, and 
because the reciprocal influence at that age beautifully develops mind and 
heart. I choose children of the middle class that we may be able to carry 
out the work we shall undertake." 

OFFICIAL REPORT ON THE FROEBEL EDTJCATIONAL INSTITUTION. 
To the Princely Consistorium at Schwarzburg-Rudolstaclt, 1825. 

In conformitj^ with instructions received on the 9th of September of last 
year (1824) from the princely Consistorium, to visit the Froebel institution 
in Keilhau and report on the same, I visited Keilhau for this purpose on 
the 23d of Kovember of last year, and remained there from half-past 
eight in the morning till five o'clock in the evening. But to get a deeper 
insight into its true life and spirit, and ascertain wherein the peculiarity 
of this institution consists, as on a first visit only the fundamental instruc- 
tion in its very various modifications could be laid before me, I passed a 
second day there on the 1st of March of this year, in order to look at the 
higher classical instruction, the methods of the teachers, and the attain- 
ments and development of the pupils. 

The principal teachers at that time, and also at present, were Froebel, 
Langetlial, and ]\Iiddendorff, which three are considered the founders of 
the institution. Froebel has undertaken the oversight of the whole from 
the beginning, and with invincible courage has carried it on happily to the 
present day with incessant struggles, heavy cares, and the extremest needs. 

Two years ago were added to the founders (in order, as it seems, not to 
separate so soon again) Herzog, a Swiss, and Schonbein, a Wurtemberger, 
as upper teachers, the last-mentioned one for the department of the nat- 
ural sciences, the first-mentioned for history and German literature. An 
elocutionist, Herr ]\Ionnet, and Hanen Schmidt, and Bromel, workers in 
the present princelj^ chapel, preside a few days every week at the institu- 
tion, and teach respectively French and instrumental music. 

The pupils numbered fifty at the time of zny last visit, from among 
whom George Luther has gone to the University to study theology. 

Both days that I passed at the institution, and so intimately with it, were 
agreeable to me in every respect, highly interesting and instructive, and 
have heightened and confirmed my esteem for the whole and for the 
founder, who in the midst of the storms of want and care, has carried it on 
and sustained it with the warmest and most unselfish zeal. It vras very 
delightful to be breathed upon by the fresh, vital, free, and yet self-con- 
tained spirit which hovers over this institution in and out of the hours of 
study. What life never and nowhere represents in its actual phase, one 
finds here — a family of at least sixty pupils living in heartfelt quite mu- 



108 FROEBEL AND HIS EDUCATIONAL WORK. 

tual understanding, all of whom do willingly what they have to do, each 
in their different places — a family in which because the strong bond of con- 
fidence unites them and every member strives for the whole, everything 
prospers of itself in an atmosphere of enjoyment and love. "With great 
esteem and hearty affection all greet their director, and while the fivu- 
3'ears-old little ones climb upon his knee, his friends and associates hear and 
honor his counselling words with the confidence that his insight, experi- 
ence, and unwearying zeal for the good of the whole deserve ; while he 
has bound himself with brotherly love and friendship to his fellow work- 
ers as to the supports and bearers of his truly holy life work. That this 
close union, we may say this brotherhood of teachers, has the most benefi- 
cent influence upon the instructions given, and upon the pupils them- 
selves in every respect, is self-evident. The care and esteem with which 
the latter embrace all their teachers is expressed by an attention and obe- 
dience which makes all discipline of rules unnecessarj'. In the two days 
I was there, in and out of the buildmgs, in the merriment out of school 
hours as during the time of instruction, 1 did not hear a corrective word 
from the mouths of the teachers. In the heartfelt gayety with which as 
soon as they emerge from school hours into the fresh air, all spring and 
frolic together, I saw no real ill breeding, no rough, unmannerly, still 
less immoral conduct. The pupils live on an equality among themselves, 
without reference to condition, or birth, or dress, nor even the name by 
which they are called, because each one bears only his baptismal name, or 
some characteristic nickname given him. Great and little ones mix cheer- 
fully and happily as if each obeyed but one Jaw, as brothers in their 
father's home, and while all seem free to use their powers and form their 
plays, they are imder the continual superintendence of the teachers, of 
whom now this one, now that one, overlooks their games and exercises, 
some of them almost always mixing with them, and joining sympathetic- 
ally, all on an equahty before the law of the play. 

But how joyously united ! with what delight this scene is to be contem- 
plated, each one in free, vigorous process of formation in a child world 
not be ruled by the sway of the whip, a world in which every one secures 
his place by outward or inward power; how its effect is at the same time to 
educate and cultivate the circle of teachers ! No slumbering faculty remains 
unwakened, each finds the stimulus it needs in so large and closely 
united a family, and also the place, small though it may be, where it can ex- 
press itself; every feeling of curiosity shows itself freelj^ and meets an equal 
or similar feeling which may express itself openly, and in which the germ- 
inating faculty stands forth distinctly; on this account an impropriety can 
never make headway, for every individual who goes to excess is punished 
forthwith; he is asked to step out of the circle or to sit down; if he wishes 
to come into it again he must yield and learn to be humble and to improve. 
Thus the boys rule, reprove, furnish, educate, and cultivate each other 
without knowing it by the many-sided stimulus, as well as the opposing 
restraints. If on this side one cannot contemplate the movement and life 
of this institution otherwise than with pleasure, so the agreeable impres- 
sion which a glance over the whole makes upon the visitor is increased by 
the visible order of the house, whose law alone can keep so large a whole 



FROEBEL AND HIS EDUCATIONAL WORK 109 

together, by the punctuality which savors of nothing like pedantry, and by 
a cleanliness which is rare to be seen to such a degree in an educational 
institution. 

To this vigorous and freely moving, and yet •well-ordered outward life, 
corresponds perfectly the inner life of mind and heart, which is here awak- 
ened and fostered. It would involve too much detail and it is therefore 
impossible to represent the instruction according to its subject or its form in 
each single department. In order to give an idea of its compass, I give 
the substance of the last study plan sent to me from the institution. 

The instruction begins in the fifth year of the child's life, by teaching it 
to get the command of its senses by observation of external things, and then 
to distinguish these from each other, and at the same time to designate 
them by the right words, and to learn also to rejoice in this first knowl- 
edge, which is the first little item for the future spiritual treasure. Inde- 
pendence of mind is the first law of this instruction, therefore the manner 
of instruction pursued here does not make the young mind a strong box 
into which as early as possible, all kinds of coins of the most different val- 
ues and coinage, as they are estimated in the world, are stuffed; but slowly, 
constantly, gradually, and always inwardly, that is, according to connec- 
tion in nature, founded on the nature of the human mind, the instruction 
goes on earnestly, without the tricks and trying of the old philanthropists 
who let the letters be baked in sugar, but going from the simple to the 
complex, from the concrete to the abstract, so well adapted to the child 
and its needs, that it goes as happily to its learning as to its play; indeed, I 
was a witness of the little ones, whose study hours were pushed ahead 
somewhat for my convenience, crying for the superintendent, and want- 
ing to know whether they must play all day and not learn, or whether the 
great boys alone were to have a session. 

In the upper grade of the classical instruction stands those who were to 
take " Selecta " according to the usual arrangement in gymnasiums. In 
the winter previous they read Horace, Plato, Phoedrus, and Demosthenes, 
and translated Cornelius Nepos into Greek. If on the day of my first visit, 
on which I had learned the plan of the fundamental instruction nearer, I 
had not been able to suppress the wish that the instruction might be such 
as this in all the lower schools, so now in the classical instruction which 
was first begun in 1820, in its whole compass, I could not but be astonished 
at the progress which had been made in that short time, and its profound 
accuracy (and afterwards, so far as the time permitted, all had gone on 
from the minimum of elementary instruction to the maximum of classical 
instruction); I felt as perfectly satisfied with regard to the instruction, as 
I had been with regard to the education. I had met with nothing else before 
than what every impartial examiner has experienced. From all the stran- 
gers whose judgment I have taken after they had become acquainted with 
the institution at Keilhau, I have not found one who was not satisfied, but 
many whom I consider highly intellectual, who have come away enthusias- 
tic, and with full recognition and acknowledgment of the highest aim 
which the institution had set for itself, and the perfectly natural way 
which it has struck out to reach that aim as surely and completely as pos- 
sible. This aim is by no means knowledge and science, but free, inde- 



110 FROEBEL AND HIS EDUCATIONAL WORK. 

pendent culture of mind from within, wliereby nothing is fastened upon 
the pupil from without, of which he has not formed a clear conception, 
and which, therefore, like tinsel, in no way elevates his intensive powers, 
and by which the scholar is never made happy because only the conscious- 
ness of his growing power gives him true jo3^ Inspired by what is noble, 
which the man who is developed on all sides considers the essence of rea- 
son and feeling, and by the elevation of his purpose, the superintendent 
of the institution has made it his goal to develop in each pupil the 
whole man, whose inner being reposes between the two poles of true en- 
lightenment and genuine religion, in such a way that he" may unfold him- 
self and realize by clearer consciousness of the power bestowed upon him, 
what he can be according to its measure. Science is held in no worth at 
Keilhau, exce^Dt as it becomes a more universal means of awakening the 
mind, of strengthening the individual, and guiding him to his highest des- 
tiny; and it is only fostered there speciall}^ because in the limited time, 
and according to the nature of the human mind, there is no more certain 
means of culture. But that all knowledge truly serves and is made useful 
to the pupils of the institution for so high an aim, one soon observes in 
the various stages of their acquisition "What they know is not a dead 
mass, but has form and life, and is converted into life as soon as possible. 
Each one is, so to speak, at home witliin himself, and neither the small nor 
the large pupils have auj^ conception of a thoughtless parrot -like imitation, or 
of any knowledge that is not clear to their understandings. What they speak 
of they have observed intuitively, and it conies from them like an inner 
necessity and with decision and discrimination, and which do not waver 
by the objections of the teachers until they have themselves been persuaded 
that they are in error. 

Every thing must be thought out ; therefore they cannot think of anything 
that they do not improve upon it; even the dead grammar with its mass of 
rules becomes living before them, for they are incited to take hold of every 
language according to the history, manners, and character of the people 
who speak it. Thus looked upon, the institution is really an intellectual 
gymnasium, for every individual study that is pursued is a true gymnastic 
of the mind. Happy the children who are educated here from their sixth 
year! Could all schools be changed into such educational institutions, 
after a few generations a more intellectually powerful, and in spite of 
earthly sins, a purer, nobler people must be formed. Of this I am so firmly 
convinced, that I congratulate my fatherland for possessing within its 
borders an institution that even in its present development, can measure 
itself with the best in our borders, and whose reputation will spread far 
beyond the limits of Germany. 

With deep respect for the Princely Consistorium, 

Your most obedient subject, 

May 6, 1825. Christian Zejh. 



FROEBEL AND ms EDUCATIONAL WORK. • m 

THE UNITY OF LIFE. 
From Dr. W. Lange's Aids to the Understanding of Froebel. 
This word {Lebenseinigung) was always in Froebel's mouth; indeed, he 
not rarely named his method of education "the culture of man for all- 
sided unity of life by a developing education." His philosophy set out 
from life and ended with life. As I have already previously endeavored 
to explain, he looked upon the universe as a great organic whole, which is 
"pervaded and penetrated," "lightened and illuminated," upheld and 
taken care of by the spirit of God. He did not exactly identify the 
Divine Spirit with the life of nature ; nevertheless the immanency stood 
out more distinctly than the transcendency, in his conception of God, as 
Johann Heinrich Deinhardt has very justly remarked. The tree, "the 
rector in his Gymnasium," had taught him that the essence of an organic 
whole is found also in each member of that whole, and that a member 
must be comprehended in a two-fold manner: once in its independence, 
self sufficiency, and exclusiveness, and then in its dependence upon the 
whole. Accordingly, the life of nature and of man was to him the life 
of God in individual form; in the life of the people he saw the individ» 
ualized life of men, in the life of the family carried on in the right spirit 
he saw the individualized life of the people, and the individual man 
appeared to him, as to Schleiermacher, a "representative of humanity in 
a specific combination of its elements." God, as the final unity of all 
living things, is a creative being, and unfolds the infinite contents of his 
being by the stream of growth and self-development which continues 
to infinity. Development is the outcoming of a being from unity into 
manifoldness. The child, as a bud on the everlasting tree of life, must, 
like the first cause of his existence, shape his being out of himself by 
creative activity, and must be so guided that the bud may throw out roots 
which will strike into the everlasting life, so that stem, leaf, and blossom 
may arise, and so that in the fruit of his doing and living the divine and 
human may appear again in its unity, that is to say, that his deeds may 
spring from his inner being to the honor of God and the use and advant- 
age of man. Education has to guide him so that he may be conscious in 
all his doing and striving of the|3urest motives and principles, and, above 
all, so that he may feel the unity of his disposition to will with that of 
God, who can only will the good, that is, education has to lead him upon 
the road to "union with God" {Gotteinigung); it has further to implant 
in him most deeply the feeling that he is a member of humanity and 
can only truly unfold his being in disinterested service to it; it has to 
give him the impulse for the process of " union with the world" {Weltein- 
igung); in the third place, it has to guide him so that he may endeavor to 
put an end to the dualism in himself, the opposition between "flesh and 
spirit," between sensitiveness and sensibleness, between willing and per- 
forming, and so that the "law in his limbs" may come into agreement 
with the "law in his mind," that is, it has to incite him to "union with 
himself" (Selbsteinigung)* But that only comes about by his being 
steeped by education as deeply as possible in the life of nature and ia 
truly human life, that is, in human life which is wholly and disinterestedly 
devoted to the whole. 



112 FROEBEL AND HIS EDUCATIONAL WORK. 

In order to expose the child to the influence of nature on as many sides 
as possible, he chose the different mountain valleys of Thuringia for the 
basis and ground of his institution, and it often sounded mystical and 
strange when he founded his choice of a place in reference to the pecu- 
liarities of the child's life. The Rchalathal surrounded by the dark, rigid 
mountain with its pine woods and sterile soil, appeared to him particularly 
suited for the education of boys; the lovely Marienthal near Liebenatein 
with its rich vegetation and soft heights for the education of girls. He 
often exclaimed, enthusiastically, when he spoke of Marienthal, "I have 
now found the place for working out the last consequence of my funda- 
mental thought. An institution for the culture of women could never 
have succeeded in Keilhau. Look at the mountain and country around 
and feel with me that nature will not have them there." 

And how he appealed to the life of nature in Keilhau, from the begin- 
ning, as a co-educator for his institution for boys! He opened his " Uni- 
versal German Educational Institution" on the 13th of September, 1816, 
in Griesheim, seizing the opportunity which was offered him by the widow 
gf his brother and three orphan nephews, his brother's children, requiring 
his help. In June, 1817, he was obliged by circumstances to transplant 
himself to Keilhau, with his fellow-worker and bosom friend, William 
Middendorff, who had already come to his side in Griesheim. 

But this pressure of circumstances seemed to him, according to his own 
words, the expression of the will of Providence, for nature here harmon- 
ized with the demands of his ideal. A miserable peasant's hut scarcely 
afforded room to the inseparable ones, and they were obliged to help them- 
selves in this respect in a way which touches upon the comical ; but nature 
opened her arms to them joj'fully. With the little band of five nephews 
and one brother of their later true fellow-worker, Langethal, they ram- 
bled over mountain and plain, and the mountain-spirit may have groaned 
when Middendorff bestowed new names on the heights and fountains, 
names of the first impression made upon him, and which afterwards really 
and completely thrust aside the historic names. Indeed, this bold troop 
cultivated ground and soil, smoothed the way over rugged heights, and 
created mountain resorts which afford the most various, the most charm- 
ing, and the most magnificent landscapes. This spirit of cherishing nature, 
and of life in nature, and of unity with nature developed in consequence, 
Keilhau has retained; and if a malicious critic could discover nothing 
else peculiar in the institution, this spirit will breathe upon him, 
fetter him, and inspire him under all circumstances. So a short 
time ago a Schiller festival was celebrated all over the world ; but has the 
"ideal man of Weimar" been honored anywhere more beautifully than 
by the troop of boys at Keilhau? They were obliged with great trouble 
to make a new path over the stoniest part of the Kirschberg, to cast away 
fragments of rock in order to reach a beautiful, quiet place which lies just 
opposite the Schiller height in Volkstadt. They planted flowers of many 
kinds, in the newly-won place, and at last the Schillerlinde, which now 
grows lustily out of a rocky world; and when the day of the festival had 
at last come, they ascended the newly-smoothed path, rejoicing and sing- 
ing songs of freedom, and the youthful band heard, in view of the favor- 



FEOEBEL AND HIS EDUCATIONAL WORK. 1 \ 3 

itc seat of our immortal poet, what Schiller had been to the German peo- 
ple. Then there were bonfires and mirth of all kinds, so that even the 
gloomy owl thrust out a friendly face. Indeed and in fact, nature did her 
duty in Keilhau and does it to this day, and it has always been felt to be 
true what the last brave associate of the Froebel Circle said to me as an 
experience of life: "Nature fiirst wins us lovingly and exercises its full 
influence on us when we take it under our care, and in its service learn 
how to strengthen our muscles and nerves." Froebel certainly carried out 
what he knew to be necessary ; he knew how to steep his pupils deeply in 
the life of nature. 

But he also wanted a truly human life, that is, one which is wholly 
and disinterestedly devoted to the whole, to have its influence, so he first 
connected himself with Middendorff, then with Langethal, men whom 
he had learned to know and love in the war, to whom he opened his 
" Idea," and in whom he found a ready sympathy and genuine enthusiasm 
for the cause. They were willing to sacrifice everything to the cause, and 
gain only so much earthly good from it as appeared necessary, indispensa- 
bly necessary for a frugal life. For that reason the number of pupils was 
fixed at twenty, and upon that the plan of the educational buiMing was 
drawn up. The chest, in spite of this small number of pupils, was to be 
open to all, and each worker was to take from it according to his need. It 
could almost be said of them as of the first Christians: no one had any 
wealth, but everything was held in common. But alas, in this circle there 
was far less of the " worldling's lookout " than of the " enthusiast's ear- 
nestness;" there was wanting a necessary element, which first came later 
with Barop's entrance into it. Even the delicately cultivated and noble 
Henriette Wilhelmine, from Berlin, whom Froebel chose for his wife in 
1818, was not able to supply the deficiency that existed, but rather stood 
completely on that side, and was in no way fitted to make allowance for 
the practical needs. They had forgotten in drawing up the original plan, 
that capital was necessary for building houses, and that with their very 
limited resources, the moderate income could neither cover nor pay an 
increasing burden of debt. In this way they soon came into straits which 
paralyzed their ideal flight. They had also forgotten that a time would 
come in which the fellow workers must think of founding families. They 
had sacrificed the most brilliant prospects, and were ready for every other 
sacrifice, but not ready for celibacy. It was also part of Froebel's plan to 
connect families with his educational aims. 

The increasing distress of the circle seemed, in spite of the worm which 
was gnawing the heart of the tree, to be ready to come to an end in 1820. 
At that time. Christian Ludwig Froebel, the third brother of Friedrich, 
left his lucrative manufactory at Osterode, in the Harz, and placed him- 
self, his family, and his means at the disposal of his brother. The heroic 
deed of this man was explained by the fabulous power of attraction which 
Froebel exercised over all those whose inner life touched his, even in a meas- 
ure ; also by the character of Christian, who was a true Cato in sentiment, 
and dominated by the most ideal striving. He was now to manage and 
to supply the externals, which all darkly knew to be a great need. But 
a personal weakness of Froebel allowed this experiment to be wrecked. 



J 14 FROEBEL AND HIS EDUCATIONAL WORK. 

He was conscious of his originality, he expected in all the same 
susceptibilty for that which animated him, and therefore looked into the 
future in the most pressing circumstances intoxicated with victory, but 
alas! he did not recognize himself as autocrat in reference to the thought 
alone, but also in points of its application. He did not give himself the 
trouble to inquire into the peculiarities of his fellow workers, and to make 
the best of them for the service of the whole. Differences of opinion 
often appeared to him as the promptings of self-seeking, he took just 
blame for abuse. Froebel, who sought to develop independence in his 
pupils, and reallj^ developed it in them, could neither recognize nor esteem, 
in his fellow workers, this grand attribute of character, which first makes 
the individual a real man. Thence it came that nothing essential was 
changed by the entrance into the family of his brother, who soon cast his 
economical superintendence at his feet; that Henriette Wilhelmine still 
managed unpractically in the house, while the family of her brother-in-law, 
who afterwards made Keilhau great, were obliged to lay their hands in 
their laps; hence came the gradual sinking of the institution, which at the 
end of twenty years reached its utmost limits, but did not go completely to 
ruin. For in spite of all the disappointments, the men of the circle, Mid- 
dendorff, Langethal, Christian Ludwig, lost not a moment in their endeav- 
ors, and never repented of refusing the most glittering prospects and all 
material well-being in order to serve the "Idea." 

The "truly human life" of the circle was thus saddened in many 
ways, and Froebel did not reach in this regard what he was striving for. 
Happily for Keilhau, new prospects opened upon him. He went forth 
Snto the world. Middendorff seized the helm, and when he, unshakably 
-true till death, was called to Switzerland, the work of Barop began, who 
Siad the goal firmly in view, and firmly followed it, and lifted Keilhau 
(Completely from its economical abyss. The documents upon the work of 
this man, who is still in the midst of a far-reaching activity, and was 
now recognized and praised highly by Froebel, now formally abjured, are 
not yet finished, and cannot yet be finished. Certain it is that he and 
31iddendorff were the only ones who practically held a curb over Froebel, 
and that out of the whole circle three human stars, Froebel, Midden- 
dorff, and Barop, take the precedence as Pestalozzi did far above all other 
phenomena of their educational circle ; and it is worthy of remark, that these 
men not only consecrated their own powers, but their whole families to the 
service of the idea; for Middendoi-ff and Langethal married in 1826, and 
Barop in 1831. They also left wife and child, as I have remarked in my 
description of the work in Switzerland, without murmuring, whenever it 
was required by circumstances. Truly such lives, such capacity of sacri- 
fice, are hardly to be conceived of in the present times ; the sense of it has 
been lost 

If then the "unity of life" of the families of Keilhau found imperfect 
expression, it still existed, and alone made possible the work of Friedrich 
Froebel, who, great in creative power, was small in administration and 
government. And certainly at least three of the united families stood 
«[uite out of range, when Froebel complained at Blankenburg on the 
7th of January, 1838, " My whole life is a battleground between the uni- 



PROEBEL AND HIS EDUCATIONAL WORK. 115 

versal and pure elements of humanity and the special disturbed human 
element, the personal, individual, and truly selfish striving of individual 
men." This battle must be met with in life, and must be fought out; but 
since pure humanity has its source and its sanctuary in the inmost recesses 
of family life, that battle had, of necessity, to take place in the in- 
most recesses of a family which is striving to preserve unity within itself 
and to manifest outwardly the purest humanity. 

In spite of these drawbacks, the Keilhau circle were all one in reference 
to the principles of education and instruction. The children enjoyed the 
greatest fretJom. A continuous, intimate communion between teachers 
and pupils exerted a deep influence. Love and self-sacrifice, as well as 
independence in knowledge and action, were developed and strengthened, 
and the individuality of each was fostered. 

The instruction aimed at an all-sided stimulation to human activity, 
receptive and productive, especially the latter. The curiosity of the 
children was excited by giving them ideas of things, and bodily labor 
was called into play. Thus the need and desire for explanation and in- 
struction were awakened. For this purpose the children were not only 
kept cultivating nature, but taken into all kinds of workshops and kept 
at all kinds of technical representations. It would be out of place here 
to describe this kind of instruction fully. The elements of many things 
were there brought to light, which were carried out later by other persons 
who now have the credit of them. For instance, Spiess, the reformer of 
the gymnastics, got his fundamental ideas from Froebel at Burgdorf, 
though he improved upon them. Froebel's one-sided traits prevented 
many buds and blossoms from unfolding, and in the domain of instruc- 
tion even came forward often in tbe most disturbing manner. When the 
first pupils grew up, the need of higher scientific instruction showed itself, 
but almost too late. Important men, Bauer, fo; example, later Professor 
at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Gymnasium in Berlin, whom Froebel had 
already learned to know in the war, Michaelis, and others, offered their 
services, and wanted to devote themselves, like Middendorff andLangethal, 
to the united efforts. But Froebel would even interfere where he had no 
positive insight, and in this way, as well as by his vehemence, which 
hardly bore contradiction, he so offended these scientifically versed men 
that they either went right away or did so very soon. Middendorf always, 
and Langethal for a long time, had the self-control to bear many griev- 
ances from Froebel, to overlook his weak sides, and in the service of the 
Idea to keep constantly in view his mission as the ci'eator of the spirit of 
the circle. But Barop was, after all, the most prudent; he accepted his 
ideas, and then acted according to his own judgment and conscience, 
without allowing himself to be disturbed by contradiction, mourning 
inwardly that Froebel was not always in a condition to respect and sup- 
port what was individual in his fellow-workers. 

I have already told what was accomplished in Switzerland by the " unity 
of life" of that one family, and how gradually the idea of the Kindcri,rar- 
ten arose. But there was need of a greater number of suitable faniilies to 
carry out the idea which, as soon as Froebel perceived, he immediately 
turned to the community. 



IIQ FROEBEL AND HIS EDUCATIONAL WORK. 

Progress — Interdict in 1851. 

Owing to his restless and itinerating habits of work, Froebel's institu- 
tions of education did not attain to any considerable local reputation, so 
as to attract visitors or Press notoriety, nor did his own publications, set- 
ting forth his peculiar principles and methods in didactic form or in an 
nual programmes, wake much discussion, or even win, by their style or 
novelty, the attention of educators. But, in spite of embarrassments 
inevitable to inadequate resources and insuflftcient assistance, with a few 
staunch and appreciative disciples he did succeed, after thirty years' study 
and experimentation, in concentrating his energies and developing his 
educational views in two institutions — one of which was a place of 
domestic and general education, and the other of special child culture, 
with much prominence given to training young women for the manage- 
ment of similar institutions elsewhere. His own presence and that of his 
gifted and devoted associate, William Middendorf, was welcomed to 
Dresden and Hamburg, and other places, to establish Kindergartens and 
interest women in their own self-improvement. 

In this condition of affairs, he had the good fortune to attract the atten- 
tion and win the friendship of the Baroness Von Marenholtz-Biilow, 
whose social position and personal influence soon brought him and his 
work to the notice of eminent educators and government officials ; and, 
iu 1850, it seemed as if henceforward his last days would not only be his 
best days, but that the calm serenity of assured success would crown a 
life of restless and apparently unproductive activity. The great popular 
educator of Germany, after much distrust arising from imperfect knowl- 
edge, had endorsed the originality and immense practical value of Froe- 
bel's Idea and Methods, and secured for him and them recognition in peda- 
gogical journals, circles, and conventions. The governing families of Thui- 
ingia had manifested their interest in him personally, and were ready to 
adopt the Kindergarten in the early training of their own children. 

In the midst of this peaceful and successful work and such brightening 
prospects, the interdict of the Prussian Minister of Education fell with 
stunning effect on the Froebelian circle, shortening the life of its founder, 
and bringing the Kindergarten into a disrepute with the conservative 
classes in Germany, from which it has not yet recovered. The Baroness 
Mar«nholtz-Billow has told the story with simple pathos in her admirable 
Reminiscenses of the last days of Froebel — the sharp surprise on read- 
ing the ordinance of August 7th, 1851 — the haste to clear up an evident 
mistake of person and aim — the indignation at the perverse misunder- 
standing of the Minister — the sickness of the heart which comes from 
hope deferred in spite of the tender appreciation of those who knew the 
whole truth, and the sublime reliance in which he resigns himself to tem- 
]nyi-ary misconstruction and obloquy, in the faith of the ultimate triumph 
of the right. 

The ordinance was revoked by the new Minister in 1861, but the in- 
telligence could not reach the dull cold ear of death, or soothe the he^rt 
which had ceased to beat on the 21st of June. 1853. 



FROEBEL A^'D HIS EDUCATIONAL WORK. 117 



LAST DAYS OF FROKBEL.* 

At Whitsuntide of 1852, Frcibel attended by invitation, the Teachers' 
Convention in Gotha. When he entered the hall in the midst of a dis- 
course, the whole assembly rose. At the end of the discourse the presi- 
dent of the meeting gave him a hearty welcome, followed by three 
cheers from the whole assembly. Frobel thanked them in a few simple 
words, and immediately taking up the subject in hand, which was 
" Instruction in the Natural Sciences," was listened to with profound 
attention. 

After the Convention, Frobel was made specially happy in the garden 
of a friend of nature in Gotha, where he examined almost every group 
of flowers, and happily and gratefully acknowledged all the good things 
that were offered him. 

In the kindergarten of Gotha he explained the intellectual signifi- 
cance of some of his occupation-materials. In the evening he took part 
in a reunion of the friends of his cause, although he was somewhat 
exhausted by the excitement of the day ; he spoke of the importance 
of the kindergarten for the female sex, and the duty of teachers to 
learn to understand it on its own theory, and prepare for its introduction 
into the schools. 

During his last illness (June 6), his repose and cheerfulness never left 
him for a moment, and he took part in and enjoyed everything, particu- 
larly when flowers were brought him. He once said on such an occa- 
sion, " I love flowers, men, children, God ! I love everything ! " 

The highest peace, the most cheerful resignation, were expressed, not 
only in his words, but in his face. The former anxious care to be active 
in his life-task resolved itself into trust in Providence, and his spirit 
looked joyfully in advance for the fulfillment of his life's idea. 

On the Sunday before his death, a favorite child came to bring him 
flowers ; he greeted her with unbounded delight. Although it was diffi- 
cult for him to lift his hand, he reached it out to her, and drew the 
child's little hand to his lips. 

The care of his flowers he recommended in these words : " Take care 
of my flowers and spare my weeds ; I have learned much from them." 
And in his very last hours he asked again for flowers. The window 
must be opened frequently, and he brightened up visibly at the aspect 
of nature, and often repeated the words, "pure, vigorous nature"; and 
at another time, " Always hold me dear," also, " I am not going away, 
I shall hover round in the midst of you." He spoke much about truth 
to Barop, who had come with the teacher Clemens, saying, among other 
things, " Remain true to God." 

He then asked them to read his godfather's letter, which in Thuringia, 
according to old custom, was given to the baptized child by the god- 

* Reminiscences of Friedrich Frobel, by Baroness von Marenholz-Bulow. Trans- 
lated by Mrs. Horace Mann. 359 pages. Boston : Lee & Shepard. Price, $1.50. 



118 LAST DATS OF FEOEBEL. 

father, and contained the confession of Christian faith. In some places 
he exclaimed, " My credentials 1 my credentials, Barop ! " especially at 
the passage in the confession, "from this time forth our Savior will 
confide in thee in justice, grace, and mercy." For the third time he 
cried out aloud, " My credentials ! " at the words, " Let my son hear ! 
look upon and hold with immovable truth to thy soul's best friend, who 
is now thine." It was as if he would say, " To him have I been conse- 
crated from the beginning of my life, and I have never in my life neg- 
lected this bond." 

One could see how earnestly his Christianity dwelt within him, little 
as he was ordinarily accustomed to speak of jt. Thus he said in the 
Teachers' Convention at Rudolstadt : " I work that Christianity may 
become realized." Another time he said : "Who knows Christ? But 
I know him, and he knows me. I wUl what he wills. But we must 
hold to his testament, the promise of the Spirit." He repeatedly admon- 
ished the friends around him in Keilhau "to preserve unity, concord, 
and peace ; to lead a model life, as one family, in a united striving. 
Have trust in God ; be true to life ! " And ever and again he ex- 
pressed love and thanks to those around him. At midnight of the 21st 
of June the last moment approached. His eyes, which had been closed 
for rest, were partially open. He was in a sitting posture,* as if his 
wish to find his last rest sitting up was to be fulfilled. His breathing 
became shorter and shorter, till, at half-past six, he drew two long 
breaths, and all was still. 

So quietly, without a struggle and without a death-throe, ended a life 
which had at no moment served selfish interests, but was devoted 
wholly and completely to humanity, and to childhood in humanity. 

Middendorff added to his communication about Frobel's last mo- 
ments : " It involuntarily drew us who stood around the death-bed to our 
knees. We felt near the consecrated one. . Never was the awe of death 
so effaced to me. I had felt something similar to it at the death of a 
beloved child. Nature made her last struggling efforts, and then stood 
still untroubled. The mind, clear to the last, fervent, joyful and lov- 
ing, went home like a child to its pure source ; a life well-ordered in 
all directions, united within and without, was fulfilled and closed. 
What he loved so much, and so often gazed upon on a clear evening. — 
the going-down of the sun, — he himself represented. As the sun sinks 
to our eyes, so sinks to our eyes the light of his being; and as, at sun- 
set, I have no thought of its passing ■ away, but only of its receding 
from view, and thereby know the certainty of its return, so I felt heie 
in sorrow the certainty of the eternal duration of life. Yes, true is the 
promise, ' Death and lamentation shall be no more.' As he often, 
when plunged in meditation, penetrated to the light of a new thought, 
so his mind, freed from all limitations and absorbed in his inmost soul, 
in his own being and life, penetrated to a new existence, — to the light 
of another day. 



LAST DAYS OF FROEBEL. 119 

"O, what stillness, what deep stillness, now! Consecration and 
holiness breathed around me. I felt joy in the midst of my pain ! He 
who stood so near to nature, and not only saw, contemplated, and in- 
vestigated it, but who was sunk in it as a child in purest love on the 
breast of a mother, — he had followed its teachings, trusted implicitly 
its laws and holy commands, had not been deceived in his hopes ; and 
how it had rewarded his love. In his illness, he had been as quiet and 
gentle as a lamb. He scarcely allowed an expression of pain to be 
heard ; no murmuring, no unwillingness, was perceived. True pon as 
he was to Nature, so was she his true mother, who took him softly and 
lovingly into her arms. 

*' But how could he have trusted her so well, if he had not clearly 
known who she was, — if he had not known who inspired her and pene- 
trated her, who governed her and wrote her laws, held her together in 
unity and self-consciousness, and kindled intelligence of her in tlie hu- 
man mind? How could he have been so serene, if he had not known 
himself to be a son of that Almighty One, — if he had not recognized 
and known the first of men who lived this unity of the Son with the 
Father, and had not felt himself one with him in all his striving? How 
could he have been so cheerful, if he had not carried within himself the 
knowledge that the consciousness of the Sonship of this only One 
would break forth by degrees in all sentient beings, and thus the con- 
scious unity and salvation of the minds for which he lived and strug- 
gled would surely and certainly appear? Therefore were his last words 
to his friends the prayer with which he closed his work upon earth, — 
' God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.' 

"My soul was full of thanksgiving for the favor vouchsafed to me 
that I could close the eyes and bestow the last cares npon him to whom 
my dying father had commended me, and who had received me upon 
his breast. How grateful it was to my heart that it was my duty to be 
so near, at his last moment, in his last battle, to him whom I had ac- 
companied so long in life, with whom I had fought the battle, with 
whom I had, for a time, worked and suffered the heaviest trials I 
Chiefly was I thankful because I saw this life end as it had begun, — 
because I saw that he was what I had heard and believed him to be, 
and that he remained wholly in unison with himself; for to the last 
moment was revealed this repose springing from inward concord, — this 
clearness, truth, and unity. As he himself characterized it, 'One must 
himself perfect his life to a ripe fruit.* And so his life dropped as a 
ripe fruit from the tree of the life of humanity. So can and also will 
be fulfilled what he said : ' The age of ripeness is coming.' And again : 
* The fragrant flower has withered, but the fruit has set which will now 
ripen. Behold in it three in one, — the connection with the earlier 
time, the steady advance in the present, and the seed of the future.' " 

Of the burial-service Middendorff said : " The bier, adorned with 
garlands of flowers and a laurel crown made by the wife and pupils, 



120 LAST DAYS OF FROEBEL. 

stood in the place -where lately Frbbel's bed had stood. All gathered 
round to look once more upon the beloved friend, and to gain an inef- 
faceable impression of the dear features. No trace of pain was to be 
found upon the countenance ; a holy earnestness and inward cheerful- 
ness shone forth from it. It was a look of introspection united with a 
light, blissful smile. The countenance showed an extraordinary ten- 
derness. The lips were slightly open, as if his mouth would pronounce 
the secret of the other world, — as if it said, 'I see in light what I have 
here seen darkly. Believe, follow the truth ; it leads to freedom, to 
bliss.' There is something striking in standing before such a counte- 
nance ; the soul becomes a prayer. We sank upon our knees. ' O 
might we all die like him, and rest in the grave with such a certainty 1 ' 
was the expression of one of the bystanders. The bier was carried out 
first through his work-room, where he had labored with unwearied in- 
dustry, often half through the night, for those near and far, under the 
impulse of the living idea in himself and his all-encompassing love for 
humanity ; past his beloved flowers, of which he took such care, and 
which, as if from gratitude, made plain to him the highest truths, like 
his yet dearer pupils, the children ; then through the sitting-room, 
■where Pestalozzi seemed to call to him from his portrait, — ' Slowly, step 
by step, will be laid the sure foundation for the temple of pure human- 
ity,' — and the divine Madonna looked at him as with thanks that he 
had so deeply divined her heart's desire, and shaped it into deed and 
love for all ; and finally thi'ough the lecture-hall, where his scholars had 
listened with rapt attention to his words, which kindled them to their 
high calling, — where strangers from north and south had thronged to- 
gether, and from whence they had gone possessed by the might of 
truth. As one said, 'He does not preach like the learned, but his 
speech is powerful ; ' and many of these have widely borne the seed 
with his motto, ' Come, let us live with our children ! ' 

" The garlanded bier was set down in the spacious vestibule, to be 
strewn with wreaths and flowers by the numerous children. All, even 
the smallest, tried to show their love and gratitude to him once more. 

" But not only children came ; friends, known and unknown, pressed 
forward to show their esteem and reverence ; the teachers of the coun- 
try round about, one and all, kindergartners and those he had be- 
friended, came even from a great distance, invited by their own hearts 
to that solemn day. 

" The teachers united in a solemn song, in moving tones. Then the 
train was set in motion towards the churchyard of the village of 
Schweina. 

" A heavy shower fell while it was on the way, so that we were 
obliged to stand imder shelter for a long time. Parson Bucket re- 
marked, ' Even his last journey is through storm and tempest.' 

" When the procession was again set in motion, and passed over the 
bridge of the brook, Ernst Luther, a descendant of the great reformer, 



LAST DAYS OF FBOEBEL. 121 

wliom Frobel and his brother had educated gratuitously in Keilhau, out 
of regard for his ancestor, said, ' Thirty-five years ago to-day he here 
led me by the hand through Schweina.' 

" The bells of the village church began to toll ; it was so earnest and 
sacred, as if these solemn peals called him to come up into the land of 
the blessed, and said with their voices that the night had passed, that 
we should hasten to follow his onward, conquering banner, and build 
the new world by means of the children I At the gate of the church- 
yard the teachers took the bier upon their shoulders, to carry it to the 
place prepared for it. 

" The newly laid out churchyard, situated outside the village upon 
an eminence, has a singularly beautiful location. The town lies half 
concealed in verdure, at the foot of a tower which rises up alone, like a 
finger-post pointing to heaven ; the whole glorious country lies spread 
out before the eye like a living picture. At the left, Altenstein, with 
the summer dwellings of the ducal family, stretches out its high hand 
with noble grace, as if protecting the young colony, showing by its act 
that it truly reverences the cross which is erected in memory of Boni- 
facius, the earliest promulgator of Christianity here. Directly in front 
stands the old castle of Liebenstein, whose name has a good sound near 
and far for its healing springs ; and on the right, shaded with lofty pop- 
lars and surrounded by green meadows and waving fields of grain, with 
the murmur of clear waters streaming from the rock of Altenstein, the 
quiet, lovely Marienthal, the seat of peace, of untiring work for the 
worthiness and the unity of life, consecrated by him who had now 
come to this spot for undisturbed rest and barmony. 

" Notwithstanding the storm and the rain which still continued, a 
large part of the community had assembled, and mothers and fathers, 
maidens and youths, and numerous children stood around the open 
grave. The venerable old burial-hymn, ' Jerusalem, thou lofty city,' 
was sung. Then Pastor Riicket began his address at the grave, and at 
that moment the rain ceased. The address began with the following 
words : — 

" ' Up to the lofty city of God soars the spirit of the man whom, we 
now, grieving, gaze after ; far above mountain and valley it soars over 
all and hastens from this world. Loved, honored, admired, praised by 
some, misunderstood, misapprehended, calumniated, condemned by 
others, he soars over all. The body which for seventy years served this 
rare spirit as a vigorous instrument, after the last spark of this richly 
active and remarkable life has gone out, shall now rest here in the 
churchyard of our community, which with pride counted the great man 
among its citizens ; in sight of this mountain which he not long ago 
climbed with eagerness, of this house of God where he celebrated with 
us piously the feast of Pentecost, of the lovely Marienthal where the 
noble old man had found in the evening of his days a peaceful refuge 
for his philanthropic activity. 



122 LAST DATS OF FROEBEL. 

"'Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth, saith 
the spirit, that they may rest from their labois ; and their works do 

follow them.' These words belong to our dead also Yes, this is 

one who died in the Lord. He has lived in the Lord, therefore he has 
also died in the Lord, sweetly and happily.' " 

The following passages from this discourse may be added here : — 

" The fame of knowledge was not his ambition. Glowing love for 
mankind, for the people, left him neither rest nor quiet. After he had 
offered his life for his native land in the wars of freedom, he turned 
with the same enthusiasm which surrenders and sacrifices for the high- 
est thought, to the aim of cultivating the people and youth, founded 
the celebrated institution at Keilhau among his native mountains, and 
talked, snd planted in the domain of men's hearts. And Vinw many 
brave men has he educated, who honor his memory and bless his name ! 
.... But then the thought came to him that the educators of men 
must imitate the creative and productive divinity in nature, which pre- 
figures and determines the future plant in the tenderest germ, shields 
and protects it carefully, out of the smallest and simplest, gradually 
and step by step develops the highest and the noblest ; that the body 
and soul of the tender little one shall be brought from the eai-lie.st child- 
hood under a more intelligent and more careful nurture tlian has been 
done heretofore, when children were sent to school already corrupted in 
body and soul ; and that, above all, this loving nurture should be trusted 
to the tender hand of women, whom the heavenly Father has created 
for this maternal calling; and to found such kindergartens, and to 
train such kindergartners, was henceforth his whole endeavor, from 
which he hoped with full confidence for the future salvation of human- 
ity, and the deliverance from manifold bodily and spiritual ills 

" To this high aim he now sacrificed all his powers, his property, his 
time, his repose. And perhaps children of his own were denied him by 
the decree of the Eternal Wisdom, that he might not be bound and 
limited by the cares for his own, that he might see and love in the 
poorest human child the child of God, and in the eye of every child 
might read the command, ' Thou shalt take care with all thy strength 
that the divine image be not defaced or distorted ; thou shalt, with all 
thy gifts, work and help that it be preserved and shaped more purely 
and beautifully, and that not the least of these be lost.' 

"For tbis he labored now; he moved about unceasingly teaching 
and working, imitating the Master, who had not where to lay his head ; 
gathered unto himself little children, and laid his hand upon their 
heads and said, * Suffer little children to come unto me, for of such is 
the kingdom of heaven.' For this he labored into the late evening of 
his life, and thereby the venerable old man himself was made young 
again amongst the playing children. For this he lived, for this he suf- 
fered, and regardless of the cry 'Hosanna,' or 'Crucify him,' he took 
his cross patiently, and bore it after his Master, and submitted trust- 



LAST DAYS OF FROEBEL. i23 

ingly to abuse, calumny, and persecution, and Christ-like, pardoned the 
deluded ones who knew not what they did, since he knew well that the 
disciple was not above his Master. However, the mental excitement 
and effort which these struggles cost him contributed to break up the 

vitality of the vigorous old man So have we too, among whom 

he spent the last years of his life, learned to know and to love this 
guileless soul, this pure, childlike nature ; you will all bear witness, 
even if you did not bear his last pious words, this our dead died in the 
Lord, for he lived for the Lord. Henceforth, lack of understanding 
and misunderstanding will no more afflict thee. Just souls are in the 
hands of God, and no pains touch them. Thou hast now found peace, 
and heaven, which thou didst foreshadow among thy dear little ones in 
the vale of earth, now surrounds thee with its purified indwellers, 

whose image our innocent children are The fruits of thy toil 

wilt thou there enjoy ; from the abode of holy spirits thou wilt look 
with transport upon the plantation which thou hast founded upon 
earth. And here too shall thy works not perish. Works like these, 
instituted out of pure love to God and to man, without selfishness and 
ambition, are wrought in God and cannot perish. Thy work will be 
continued. If thou art now laid to rest, others will rise up and carry 
on the work. The seed which thou hast sown will, ripening in quiet, 
always bring richer and richer harvest for the salvation of mankind. 
May the earth which rises over thy grave, pious soul, rest lightly upon 
thee, and when moss and turf grow green, and flowers bloom over this 
heart which beat so warmly for its brothers ; when the little ones with 
whom thou didst play shall have grown gray, then will posterity bend 
its steps to this pleasant burial-spot, and crown it with garlands, and 
some strong man will tarry here thoughtfully, thanking and blessing 
thee, and the spirit within him will say, ' Here a great, noble heart 
rests from its work ; it has labored for the earliest childhood and for 
the latest future ; labored in hope, and its hope was not lost, — his 
works follow after him.' " 

I quote again from Middendorff's letter : 

" The teachers sang the song, ' Rest softly,' etc. Then the coflBn was 
lowered into the grave, which was filled with flowers. The heavens 
had withdrawn their dark curtain, and the sun shone down into the 
open grave. I stepped forward and said : ' If thy ear were not closed 
and thy mouth not dumb, thy lips would now open and thou wouldst 
exult over what thou hast heard, that that of which thou wert so cer- 
tain has already been fulfilled, even though in a small circle, — the 
acknowledgment of the truth proclaimed by thee. . . . Even thy last 
journey was through storm and tempest, as has been already said. 
Thou hast taken the storm and the heavy way for thy companions, and 
hast reminded us what journeys thou didst make through thy whole 
life in night and tempest, and what heavy ways thou hast traveled for 
us. Thou permittest us now to proclaim the not-to-be-forgotten truth 



124 LAST DAYS OF FROEBEL. 

that he who is with thee, and will follow thee, must be ready to follow 
thee through storm and through toil and hardship ; must be ready for 
what thy life has taught, ^Through conflict to victory ! ' Thou hadst not 
merely the courage to pledge thy life in war, in peace also hast thou 
pledged it again and again, and joyfully hast sacrificed all to thy cause. 

" Thou didst often say, ' I like the storm ; it brings new life ; ' the 
lightning which on our way here flashed out of the cloud shall remind 
us that the darkness which still obscures the time can be rent and 
illuminated by a mighty ray ; it reminds us how thy words, thy in- 
spired action, feU like a fire-flame into the dark heart, summoned the 
sleeping conscience to awake, and made clear to itself the darkened 
mind. Does not one (the descendant of Luther) stand here by my 
side, who feels now in his heart, with burning thanks, how thou didst 
lead him many years ago in the path of a worthy existence ? Will not 
many of those present confess that thou hast thrown into their minds a 
kindling and illuminating torch, hast opened up to them new ways of 
culture, and hast furnished them the means of turning the kindled 
thought into act ? and for how many maidens in the night of an embit- 
tered existence hast thou lighted the star of a better hope, and cast the 
saving rope into the dangerous breakers and drawn them to the green 
shore of child-nurture ? . . . . 

" Thou callest upon us : ' You are my last witnesses, be my true dis- 
ciples and heralds ; be the true little band which shall always increase, 
and which the greater one shall join. Think of me and my words ; He 
who was with me will be with you, and will give you courage and 

strength as he has vouchsafed it to me, even to the grave Thank 

me by silence and action, by a deeply penetrating insight and a united 
creative practice.' .... There stand the mothers with their nurslings 
in their arms, their children by their sides, who bear witness that thou 
hast smoothed the way to the minds of men not only by the fire of thy 
speech, but also by the tones of song with which, like the delicious, 
caressing wind and the fresh morning breeze, thou hast imbued the 
hearts of the mothers. 

" Now a song I had written for the occasion was sung, which was 
followed by the sacred hymn, ' Rise again, thou shalt rise again.' The 
pastor said, as he threw a handful of earth into the grave, ' May God 
grant to each of us such an end as that of this just man.' 

" As the bystanders repeated this act, Luther cried with a loud and 
agitated voice into the grave, ' I thank thee, too.' 

" The scholars threw flowers upon flowers into the grave ; one took 
her bouquet from her breast and threw it in ; then I cast in my song 
also, as the last gift. 

" Mutually consoled, we separated quietly, and with inward confi- 
dence, to go in our various directions ; and over the minds and feelings 
of all spread the wings of an exalted peace." 



froebel and his educational work. 125 

Contents op Lange's Collected Wbitings of Froebel. 

XOLUMB L—fmUrich Frcebel and his Development, 1-549 

1. IntrodacUon by the Editor, 1 

A. Chronological View of Principal Events in Life of Froebel, 1 

B. Critical Momente in the Froebelian Circle, 4 

C. Unity of Life, 14 

D. Report on the Efforts of the Froebelian Circle, 23 

2. Antoblographical Letters, 32-153 

A. Letter to Dake of Meiningen, 32 

B. Letter to K. Ch. Fr. Krause, ' 119 

3. Froebel'B View of Pestalozzi, 154-213 

4. An Appeal to our German People from Keilhau, 204 

6. Principles, Aim, and Inner Life of the Universal German Educational Institu- 
tion at Eeilhaa, 242 

6. Aphorisms, 1821, with Preface by the Editor, 

7. Concerning the Universal German Educational Institution at Keilhau, 284 

8. Upon German Education in general, and the Institution at Keilhau in particular, 291 
Appendix of Krause's Judofmeut on the foregoing Essay, 311 

9. Report on Institution at Keilhau, with Plan of Study, 322 

10. The Christmas Festival at Keilhau, 1817, 364 

11. Announcement of the People's Educational Institution at Helba, 399 

12. Froebel at the grave of Wilhelm Carl, 1830, 418 

13. Announcement of the Institution at Wartensee, 423 

14. Ground Principles of the Education of Man, with a Study — Plan of the Insti- 

tution atWillisau, 428 

15. Plan of Educational Institution for the Poor in the Canton of Berne, 456 

16. Plan of the Elementary School and Educational Institution in the Orphan 

House in Burgdorf, 1833, 479 

ArPEViDix.— Letter to Christopher Froebel in 1807, 524 

VOLUME II., Fatit O^TE.— Education 0/ Man, and other Essays, 1-561 

Education of Man. — 

I. Foundation op thb Whole 27 

II. Man in Earliest Childhood, 27 

m. Man as a Boy, 64 

IV. Man as a Scholae, 89 

1. Whatisa School? 89 

2. What Should Schools Teach, 96 

8. Chief Group of Subjects of Instruction, 98 

A. Religion and Religious Instruction, 98 

B. Natural Science, and Mathematics, 108 

C. Language, and Instructions in Language, with Reading and Writ- 

ing in Connection, 158 

D. Art, and Subjects of Art, 178 

4. The Connection between Family and School, and the Subjects of Instmc- 

tion Conditioned upon it, 182 

A. General Survey, 182 

B. Special Survey of Single Subjects, 182 

a. Culture of the Religious Sense, 190 

b. Culture of the Body, 200 

e. Contemplation of Nature, and the External World, 203 

d. Union of Poetry and Song, 225 

e. Exercises in Language, 233 

/. Pictorial Dlustrations, . 245 

g. Drawing in the Net, 250 

h. Comprehension of Colors, 266 

'•Play 275 

k. Story -telling, 277 

t. Short Journeys and Long Walks 282 



126 FROEBEL'S COLLECTED WRITINGS. 

Education or MAif — Continued 283 

m. Science of Numbers, 289 

n. Science of FormB, 303 

0. Exercises in Utterance, 307 

p. Writing, 319 

g. Reading, 328 

r. Review and Close of the Whole 330 

Appendix to Pabt Ose.— Treatises Upon Different Subjects, 337 

I. Essays of the Yeab 1826, 

A. The Being and Destiny "f Man 340 

B. Betrothal,... *. 341 

C. Children's Plays and Festivals, 353 

D. Walking and Riding, 358 

E. The Little Child, or the Significance of its Various Activity, 384 

F. Got of Child-life, 397 

G. The Science of Forms and its Higher Significance 413 

H. Instructions in Science of the Earth, with a Chart of Schale Valley, 462 

U. The Yeab 1836 Reqctires the Renbwino of Life, 499-561 

VOLUME II., Part Tyro.— Papers by Froebel in Different Periods, 1-583 

1. The Double Glance, or a New Year's Meditation, 1 

2. Plan of an Institution for the Fostering of Inventive Activity, 11 

3. The Child's Life— The First Act of the Child, 18 

4. The Ball the first Plaything of the Child, 25 

5. The Seed com and the Child ; a Comparison, 47 

6. Play and the Playing of the Child, 48 

7. The Sphere and the Cube the Second Plaything, 58 

8. First Oversight of Playing, 79 

9. The Third Play and a Cradle Song, 82 

10. Progressive Development of the Child, and Play Developing with the Ball, 110 

11. The Fourth Play of the Child 127 

12. Second Oversight of Play, 150 

13. The Fifth Gift, 154 

14. Movement Plays, 182 

15. A Speech made before the Queen in 1839, , 223 

16. Frederich Froebel, in Relation to the Efi'orts of the Time and its Demands,. .. 239 

17. The Children's Garden in the Kindergarten, 271 

18. How Lina Learns to Read and Write, 278 

19. Spirit of the Developing Educating Human Culture, 320 

20. The Child's Pleasure in Drawing, , 351 

21. Directions for Paper-folding, , 371 

22. The Laying of Strips, 389 

23. The 22d of June, 1840, 415 

24. Plan for the Founding of a Kindergarten, and Report upon the Expense, 456 

25. Appeal for an Educational Union, with the Statutes of such a Union, 484 

26. Plan of an Institution for Kindergartners, and Kindergarten Nurses, 493 

27. The Intermediate School, 501 

28. Speech at the Opening of the first BUrger Kindergarten in Hamburg, 523 

29. The Play Festival at Altenstein, 627 

ao. An Intelligible Brief Deecription of the Materials for Flay in the Kindergarten, 659 



"WALTER'S FROEBELIAN LITERATURE. 127 

PTTBLICATIONS RELATING TO FROEBEL AND HIS SYSTEM. 

"Under the title of " The Froebel Literature," Mr. Louis Walter, teacher in 
Dresden, has issued a pamphlet of 197 pages devoted to the publications 
which Froebel's system has called forth in elucidation, attack, or defence 
since Froebel issued the Sonntagsblatt in 1838. 

The author does not claim to have exhausted the list of contributions, 
although it is evident he must have had in the Baroness v. Marenholtz- 
Biilow the best informed individual and in her own library access to the 
best collection in the world relating to the subject. The title page of each 
publication is given in full, with brief notice of the contents which enables 
Mr. Walter to classify these contributions as follows : 

1. Written from the medical standpoint to the number of 16; 

2. Do. from the Philosophical, 17; 

3. Do. from the Theological, 8; 

4. Do. from the Scientific and Official, 8; 

5. Do. from the Pedagogic, 138; 

6. Do. from the Journalistic, 47; 

7. Do. by women, or women associated with men, 46; 

making an aggregate of 335 treatises. Under the 5th classification is the 
names of 11 authors who are connected with gymnasiums or Real Schools; 
17 with Teachers' Seminaries; 30 with the Common Schools; 6 with In- 
stitutions for feeble-minded children; and 24 with practical Kindergart- 
ners. 

In addition to this classification Mr. Walter brings together the authors 
who treat of (1) Froebel's Life and Educational Work; (2) Froebel's 
System of Education ; (3) the Kindergarten, its special aim and field ; (4) 
Manuals of Method; (5) Material and Equipment; (6) Music and Songs; 
(7) Relation of Kindergarten to the School, School-garden, and School 
Shop; (8) Special Features of the New Education; (9) Related subjects. 

Mr. Walter gives the address where the best Kindergarten Material and 
Manuals and Froebelian Literature can be had in diflferent countries. 

The last chapter is devoted to a list of authors arranged chronologically 
each year from 1838, the date of Froebel's first issue of the Sonntagsblatt. 
This list, with some modifications, or else a new bibliography, arranged 
alphabetically, we hope to print before we close our " Kindergarten and 
Child Culture Papers " in this Journal. 

The interest in Froebel's system, judged from the publication standpoint, 
does not die outf there being more issues (30) in 1879-80, than there was 
from 1838 to 1850. 

We give elsewhere a List of Publications relating to Froebel and the Kin- 
dergarten, which are accessible to American students, and hope hereafter, 
as is intimated above, to make that list complete up to the date of its 
publication. 

* Die Froebel Litebatur, Zusammen stellung, Inhalts-Angabe und Kritik derselben, 
von Louis Walter. Dresden: Verlag von Alwin fluhle, 1881, S. xi 4-197. 

Mr. Walter Is also the author of an interesting volume of 156 pages devoted to the 
Baroness von Marenholtz-BOlow's labors for the disBemination of Froebel's System of 
Education and Kindergarten. 

Oihei- worlis are announced by him: 

"On Diesferweg and Froebel" ; "Development of the Froebel Idea in different Coun- 
tries " ; " Froebel 8 Place iu the History of Pedagogy." 



NOM, 

Miss Josephine Jarvis^btChxc&go,'^ having lovinffly studied Proebel for nine years,'* 
has made an English version of the chapters in the second volume of his Collected Writings 
(Lange), which she will publish under the title of Froebel's Pedagogics, as soon as 
she receives subscriptions for 650 copies, at $1.50 per copy, — "the minimum num- 
ber necessary to meet the actual expense of an edition of 1,000 copies." We have signified 
our desire to possess copies, without knowing more of the merits of the translation than 
the reputation of the author in kindergarten work, and we hope there are others who 
will addrtiss a postal to the same purport to 

Miss Josephine Jaevis, 

U Fortieth Street, Chicago, Illinou. 



II. 

FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM. 



WILLIAM MIDDENDOEFP AND THE KINDERGARTEN. 

Compiled from Lange'a and Diesterweg's Notices in Pedagogisches Jahrbuchfor 1855. 



MEMOIR. 

William Middendokpf, who in all his working days was associated 
with Frederick Froebel, and whose name should not be divorced from 
his in any historical development of the Kindergarten, was born in 
Brechten on the 20th of September, 1793. He was the youngest child, 
and only son of six children born to a .peasant family in Westphalia. 
The local surroundings and family occupations were rural, and his 
were all the inherited traditions of genii and other inspirations of such 
locality and homes. 

These Genii brake the woodland paths / 

And speak the language of the trees ; 
Startle the birds in their green shades, 
And watch in meads the browzing kino. 
They know where broods the little birds 
That guard their fledglings till they fly ; 
They brown themselves in sun and storm, 
And know not human speech nor love.—Thieme. 
The father had an intense desire that his darling son should be qual- 
ified by education to rise into a position of higher culture and influence 
than his own, and to this end should become a preacher. He soon had 
caught the brightness and sweetness of the natural scenery round him 
as he tended the flocks on the hills and followed or watched the kine 
as they browzed, or wended to and from their wickered sheds night and 
morning, and all things conspired to develope the poetical side of his 
nature. In his solitary musings on the impressions which streamed in 
through eye and ear, "presentments of a life of his own, and of the 
connection and union of all tilings" were his, and in this ideal he ever 
afterwards acted. The fields and the uplands and hill-tops were 
always full of enjoyment to himself, and themes for the instruction 
of others. 

At the age often Middendorflf attended the gymnasium of Dortmund, 
and resided in the family of his uncle, the father of Arnold Barop. A 
school comrade of that period writes: "He took rank before all 
others, and was a model to us all — somewhat formal in manner, and 
terribly orderly and conscientious." His uncle had destined him for 
the university of Jena, but his inward promptings (his demon) insisted 
on his going to Berlin, and go he did, and there listened to the teach- 
ings of Fichte, Neander, and Schleiermaeker, and ever after held them 
all, and especially the latter, in the deepest reverence. 

In Berlin he was on very friendly terms with Justinus Kerner, and 
especially with Qustav Schwab. He was introduced by a countryman 



132 WILLIAM MIDDBNDORFP. 

to the Counsellor of War, Hoffmeister, the father of Froebel's first 
wife. In the Spring of 1813 he joined Lutzow's free corps in Dresden. 
"While in service he became acquainted with Friederick Froebel and 
Heinrich Langethal — the former, " that strange owl, who goes his 
solitary way and reads something strange in stones and plants." He 
was in military service for a year. Then he was discharged with a 
reversionary into the Iron Cross and the place of an officer in case he 
should be called upon again. When Napoleon came back from Elba, 
he offered himself again to the corps, but was sent back to his studies 
by the influence of others. He returned to Berlin and became private 
teacher in the family of a banker. Langethal was at the same time 
private teacher in the family of the brother. Friederick Froebel 
received an appointment to the Mineralogical Museum of Berlin ; he 
was an assistant of the well-known mineralogist, Weiss. The friendly 
relation between the three men was a very intimate one. The plan of 
founding an educational institution had been discussed by them while 
in service. But on account of outside obstacles the thought still slum- 
bered in their minds. -Then Froebel suddenly vanished, as he had 
received a call to Stockholm as Professor of Mineralogy. His friends 
knew nothing of him for a long tihie. At last he wrote to them from 
Griesheim and asked them to come to him. Middendorff did this in 
1817, against the wish and in spite of the weeping prayers of his 
parents, who at last, calming their feelings, dismissed him with these 
words: "Heaven has richly blessed us, one must be sacrificed to the 
Lord ! " Langethal soon followed the example of his friend, and thus 
began the life drama at Keilhau, which, in its trials, had a closer 
resemblance to a tragedy than a comedy. 

In 1826 Middendorff was married, and was blessed with seven chil- 
dren. His family life was simple and earnest, but cheerful. He exacted 
from all its members an unselfish devotion to the idea which the found- 
ers of the Universal German Educational Institution were striving to 
realize, and would tolerate nothing useless or self-indulgent, not even 
in the days and ^eeks of customary reckless recreation. To his wife 
he was always tender, frank, and considerate; and his children, vnth 
whom he was strict, but not harsh, he put into the path of free devel- 
opment, and they always regarded him with great filial piety and tender 
reverence. He was a friend and example of order and neatness ; and 
diligent and earnest, even to overworking, in his efforts to realize in 
the institution the idea, or disseminate a knowledge of its principles. 

He was intensely patriotic and national, and to the German Parlia- 
ment of 1848, he dedicated his treatise " The Kindergarten — the need of 
the present time;" and when the scarcely risen sun set again, he did 
not lose courage and hope. " Come let us live with our children," he 
cried so much the louder, with his friend Froebel, and when that friend 
departed this life, in 1852, he exclaimed, " Now I must be born ! " 
In the struggle precipitated by the Positivists, he declared himself 



WILLIAM MIDDENDORFF. I33 

attached to that which, although unseen and spiritual, still was solid 
as the rock. " Faith sees the Infinite as the Being out of which every- 
thing tliat is, was, or will be, proceeds, even our own spirits. Faith is 
sensibility to the spirit of creation, and holds firmly and unchangeably 
to the Infinite, which is an immediate intuition, and manifests itself to 
the soul as the architype of the true, the right, and the good. Those 
who would imprison the spirit of Christianity in crystalized forms are 
the worst sort of Positivists." 

On the 26th of November, 1853, MiddendorflF stepped to the window 
to look out on the fields and woods, while a deep snow was falling — 
" Oh, how tlie snow enchants me ! " and then returned to the group to 
which he was giving religious instruction, which having finished, he 
stepped again to the window and said : " See how nature lets everything 
apparently decay and fall, and seem to die; but it hides the new buds 
and the new life for the coming spring, only we cannot see them. So 
it is with human life." He then played cheerfully with the children, 
and spoke in his last instruction on the immortality of the soul, sug- 
gested by his last look on the outer world. He died in the night of a 
nervous spasm, and his eyes were closed forever. 

Middendorflf 's motto was : Be transparent, true, and faithful. 

SERVICES FOR KINDERGARTEN. 

Middendorflfs great service to the Froebel idea, was in his unselfish 
devotion of himself for life to its realization in practical methods, and 
the magnetic infiuence of his oral exposition of its principles in private,, 
and occasionally in public. His few printed thoughts are not of much 
pedagogical value. 

In 1848 MiddendorflF published his " TTioughts on the Kindergarten,^'^ 
which he dedicated to the German Parliament (to which many appeals 
had gone up from the people for the improvement of the schools and of 
educational institutions generally), and to the beloved children, "the 
budding hope of the people" to whom his whole life has been devoted. 

To the inquiry "Why must the Kindergarten be?" MiddendorflF 
shows that parents generally have r.either the knowledge or the leisure 
to look after the early development of the cliild's physical and mental 
faculties, and which will grow in sonie direction in spite of the indiffer- 
ence, ignorance, or perversity of parents or nurses. Intelligent parents 
gladly welcome the trained kindergartner. 

To the inquiry, " How is a Kindergarten carried on," the author de- 
scribes briefly the whole process of child culture from the baby play 
and song to the later occupations and tlie Christmas festival. 

To the inquiry, "What does the Kindergarten efl'ect in the Child?'* 
Middendorff appeals to parents to come and see the real development of 
the whole being. Seeing is here — believing. 

In the last division of his little treatise, the author unfolds the necessity 
and ways of meeting the higher and deecper social and moral wants of 



234 WILLIAM MIDDENDORFF. 

the poorer classes of society, in the right beginnings of child culture 
which the Kindergarten offers in its plays and occupations. 

First Beginning in Hamburg. 

Out of the stirring year, 1848, issued numerous projects of social 
and national reform, in some of which German women participated, 
particularly in the commercial city of Hamburg. Among other forms 
of this activity was the German Catholic Congregation, to which 
George Weigert was attached as the religious teacher. This society 
had turned its attention to Friederich Froebel, who had, in various 
ways, appealed to women as the true educators of the race, whose 
mission it was to clear the path for their own emancipation, and the 
elevatien of humanity by a new education which should take hold of 
the child in the cradle and in the age of impressions when impressions 
are deepest and most lasting. To Froebel an invitation was extended 
to spend six months in Hamburg to give lectures, found Kindergartens, 
and train suitable persons to conduct the same. 

In some complication of affairs growing out of the engagement with 
Carl Froebel, to establish a Girl's High School in Hamburg, Midden- 
dorff became personally known to the committee charged with that 
movement, and on the occasion of a visit to his daughter, in Septenibei", 
1849, was invited to address the "Woman's Union, to which known 
friends, doubters, and opposers of the new education were invited. 
When he closed his address all present were fused by his fervid elo- 
quence, and — borne on the stream of his flowing narrative of work done 
at Keilhau, and clear statement of principles and glowing anticipations 
of good fi'om the general and earnest enlistment of women in the 
work of their own emancipation, the ennobling of the family state, and 
the elevation of humanity — were united in a common feeling and pur- 
pose. On the evening of the 23d following Middendorff spoke again 
for two hours on the same themes to a numerous audience, with the 
same results, and when Froebel came, the way was open for him to 
begin his work. 

If the immediate results in founding Kindergartens were not as 
marked as was anticipated by some of the original movers, this may 
be attributed partly to the absorption of a portion of the interest 
awakened by Middendorf which was personal to himself, by the Girl's 
High School movement; and partly to the delays in the growth of any 
institution, which depends on the cooperation of many independent 
agencies acting from different standpoints, and to the conflicting claims 
of other interests. One thing is certain, out of this purely accidental 
but always identically harmonious aimed labor of the two friends, the 
Kindergarten work was begun in Hamburg, and out of that beginning 
in 1849 has flowed a mighty stream of influence which has disseminated 
the Froebel idea t© many countries. 



william middendorff. 135 

Characteristic Traits. By Dr. Diesterweg. 

The loved and lost we see no more, 
But their glorious light we see, 
Shining from the other shore. 

With these words of Goethe* I introduce the following tribute to 
the characteristic traits of William Middendorff. Whoever knew 
him will not soon forget him ; whoever came into his sphere was 
illuminated by the warmth and light which radiated from him; 
from many the benign influence has not yet passed away. To speak 
figuratively, he was a star that gratefully absorbed into itself the 
light of other stars ; but he shone also with his own radiance. 

A monument to Friedrich Froebel has been placed upon his 
grave, on the hill above Marienthal, in the beautiful church-yard that 
stands over the little city of Schweina, where the view of the castle 
of Altenstein and the ruins of Liebenstein enchants the traveler. 
The monument represents the cube, cyUnder, and ball, the ground 
symbol of Froebel's intuition — and is hewn out of sandstone. A per- 
ishable monument ! still it was excellently devised by Middendorff. 
But what need have men of the inner being of outward tokens of 
honor during their life time, or outward monuments after their death ? 
Monuments are erected to the heroes of war ; these men have made 
themselves an imperishable monument — if anything is imperishable 
in tliis world — in the hearts of men. The divine discovery of Johann 
Guttenberg offers itself as a fitting means of relating to their co- 
temporaries and successors the life of these noble friends of men. 
These words have this aim. May they find a receptive ear and heart ! 

As, according to Niebuhr's remarks, at the death of an honorable 
man in old Rome, there was not a sorrowful voice, but all took pains 
to honor his memory and to make known to a wide circle his services 
to his country, and to life, together with his other virtues, so we, late 
minstrels of the dead (Epigoni), will do with our dead. An hon- 
orable remembrance is all we have to offer them. If further we are 
excited to emulate them, their influence extends beyond the limits of 
their immediate activity. I have nothing to say of Middendorff but 
what is good and noble. Indifferent readers might suspect that I am 
covering up or concealing weaknesses, exaggerating virtues, and, 
instead of giving historical traits, delivering a panegyric. It is 
not so ; the truth is everything with me, but I have perceived nothing 
blameworthy in Middendorff. I do not think it useful to create 

♦Was vergangen, kehrt nicht wieder ; 
Doch wae leuchtend ging hernieder, 
Leuchtet lange noch z[iriick..—Gdthe. 

Diesterweg's PMagogisches Jahrbuch for 1855. 



136 WILLIAM MIDDBNDORPF. 

beings of ideal perfection at the expense of truth ; but it would be 
still more objectionable to hunt up weaknesses, if they did not pre- 
sent themselves. Of Middendorff it may truly be said, " He was a 
man whose steps may be followed, but whose place no man can fill." 

Lange, in his representation, does not disclaim the sentiment of a 
son-in-law, or daughter's husband, but far from falling into the rhe- 
torical tone of the flatterer, he speaks only the language of a grate- 
ful son and of just veneration for a man who was not only his 
father, but his friend and teacher. Indeed, I am sure that he is so 
careful not to excite the opinion that he has said too much, that he 
holds back some information which I, who was not connected with 
Middendorff by the ties of relationship, but only (only, do I say ?) 
of spiritual friendship, have undertaken to add. I speak, of course, 
not in the name of another, but in my own name. 

But before I proceed I must, for the right estimate of the stand- 
point which I take in such a representation of another's life, repeat 
a saying of Wieland's, which he puts into the mouth of Diogenes of 
Synope: "A small mind perceives, in the narrow circle which he 
describes with his nose, the smallest motes. Hence the readiness 
with which Lilliputian minds ai'e so much too active in perceiving 
little spots or little faults, while they are incapable of being touched 
by the beauty of d whole character. They do not consider that this 
sharp-sigh tedness for trifles is nothing but a childish trait, and that 
through their own inability to take in a whole and judge it correctly, 
they lack one of the most essential advantages by which a man may 
be discriminated from a creature in leading-strings." 

Unquestionably Froebel and Middendorff were both interesting men 
and belonged to this category. Both friends, whose friendship began in 
Liizow's free corps and lasted through life, were pupils, esteemed dis- 
cij)les of Pestalozzi ; Froebel was his immediate pupil. *' The disciple 
is not above the master," but the disciple works in the spirit of the 
master, else he does not deserve that title of honor. Rich is the creative 
power of the master of the world, but yet it seems, at times, that this 
power — ceases to act, who could think that ! — manifests itself in other 
ways. Thus the spirit of Pestalozzi seems to vanish. Perhaps the 
men named were the last of his true pupils. That would be a matter 
of regret, for the spirit of Pestalozzi was the spirit of true ideality, 
and yet (or was it just for that reason) the spirit of true love for 
the people, the lowly-bom and the poor, the spirit of true pedagogj'. 
"We have, as teachers, the same right as other professions. There- 
fore, in modesty, we call the last century pedagogically the century 
of Pestalozzi, just as men in general speak of the century of Alex- 



WILLIAM MIDDBNDORFF. 13^; 

ander, of Charles the Great, of Frederick II. With Pestalozzi, our 
two friends shared a similar fate, poverty and misunderstanding. 
Like him, they fought all their lives with the want of sufficient 
means, and their purest purposes were not spared mistrust and con- 
tempt. Whoever is desirous of material treasures must not choose 
the path of the teacher, who verifies the proverb uttered three thou- 
sand years ago, " Whoever will teach much, must suffer much." 
The pedagogue must not expect to see outward results, but so much 
more is it our duty to acknowledge what the true pedagogue has 
done, to support him with all our power, and be true to his memory 
in our hearts. Good men often shake off the grateful memory of 
men to whom they owe their knowledge and insight. 

In the spring of 1849 I met with Froebel ; in the autumn of the 
same year with Middendorff. The meeting with these two closely- 
united friends I look upon as the last happy event of my teaching 
life. Like the dew-drops, in every one of which the corporeal eye 
of creation, the sun, mirrors itself, but each in its own way : so the 
spirit of true pedagogy mirrored itself in those men, characteristically 
in each (which is a token of their truth to nature). 

I have spoken of Froebel in the " Pedagogic year-book for 1851,'' 
and often in the " Rhein. Blatter ; " but one cannot speak of Mid- 
dendorff without speaking of Froebel; they belong together. But 
here Middendorff stands in the foreground. 

What I have to say of him I write with renewed deep sorrow 
over the unexpected loss of that man, I say, although the word is 
not satisfactory ; but alas ! I know of no word that will distinctly 
express the nature of Middendorff's being. There is no word, as 
there are no symbols for a richly-endowed nature, a manifoldly-culti- 
vated personality, for a uniform combination of rare excellences. 
These peculiarities present themselves to every one who knew Mid- 
dendorff. I shall be accused of extravagance in what I shall say 
further of him, but it cannot be helped. I must rather add that my 
words do not satisfy me ; the impression I carry away of him is not 
to be represented in words, so I do not think of trying for any ; I 
write unsatisfactory, cold words of the man in whom has appeared 
to me thus far the noblest, most rounded personality that I have had 
the happiness of beholding. Middendorff was a God-like man. 

If one wishes to praise a teacher, one ascribes these and those 
qualities to him, and rejoices in them ; and if one is praising a man, 
one will say that he is sincere and true, upright and without blemish, 
friendly and grateful, and worthy of recognition, but, thank God, not 
of uncommon virtue; but these and those qualities do not reach 



1381 WILLIAM MIDDENDOEFF. 

Middendorff. He stood outside the limits of every thing common. 
He moved like an ordinary man among ordinary men ; there was 
nothing peculiar in his manners, but what and how he was was a 
thing of the rarest kind. Of the men I have known in life I can 
place no one by the side of him in respect to the oneness and indi- 
vidually-personal perfection of his nature. Whoever reads this will 
think of Friedrich Froebel, and will perhaps remember what I have 
said of him. I remember how Middendorff looked up to him as 
already far superior to himself, and it is true he was more rich in 
invention, more creative, more full of genius, than Middendorff; but 
in respect to the oneness of the whole being, to visible, palpable, 
obvious ingenuousness and devotion, and purity of heart and soul, I 
place no one over — I place no one near Middendorff. 

He is gone, he is lost to us ; and therefore I can speak of him, 
What would the man say, if here, in his — what shall I say ? in his 
innocence, in his simplicity, in his maiden modesty, if he should 
know that any one spoke of him thus ? He would glow with anger. 
as I have seen him do, but the capacity for that I look upon in him 
as a high one ; he was a child, and again no child ; a child in inno- 
cence and purity of heart, but also a man, and at the right time a 
most commanding and powerful man. But I cannot go on thus ; I 
must control myself; I must relate individual traits. 

There is a science of physiognomy ; one can recognize the essen- 
tial nature of a man in the build of his body, in his walk, his atti- 
tudes, in the shape of his head, in his mien — I mean the incommun- 
icable, direct conception of the most profound and peculiar quality 
of a man. The capacity for it is peculiar only to men of simple 
and sincere nature ; only in a pure mirror can be seen a true picture 
of objects. So-called connoisseurs of men, the worldly-wise men, are 
far removed from it. They deceive themselves in all the routine of 
which they boast ; they have no touchstone for simple, grand natures. 

By such natures we can test, exalt, and strengthen the degree 
which we have had the happiness to possess of this touchstone of 
character. Middendorff was peculiarly fitted for this. His appear- 
ance wholly and purely proclaimed his nature, the very essence of 
the man. Other men, too, have an expression of spirituality and 
sensibility in their countenances. Middendorff's face was transfig- 
ured. In his eye there lay something which it is difficult to describe ; 
H can only be indicated when I say there was something supernatural 
in it. In his daughter's eye it is found again. If one should say a 
large, beaming eye, of spiritual yet mild brilliancy, expressive of 
greatness of soul, showing love, devotion, friendship, and trust, all 



WILLIAM MIDDENDORFF. I39 

that is true of him, but still it does not indicate the peculiar quality. 
We come nearer to it if we remember a wide-open pupil yielding 
itself to a pure conception of the world, and of men — who has seen 
it otherwise — when he thinks of and portrays to himself the spirit- 
uality of expression in jjictures of prophets and seers, as — to mention 
no higher example — Socrates must have looked when he received 
communications from his demon. 

That Middendorff, like every man penetrated with deep sensibility 
to the inner meaning of things, and to the understanding of himself 
and the recognition of the duties of life obligatory upon him, had 
his demon, and received communications from it and followed its 
warnings, was certain. Lange has expressed it already. It was 
seen in the mirror of his eye ; the intrinsic tone of his voice pro- 
claimed it to every one wlio had the ear for it ; the confessions which 
his intimate friends received from him in confidential conversation 
confirmed it (his voice then took a peculiar elevated tone, and yet a 
lower key) ; and this peculiarity of the man drew children to him 
with an indescribable charm, and fettered them to his side. 

He was, like Salzmann, certain of the immediate guiding of a 
power, not incompatible with freedom, swaying the fate of the world 
at large and the affairs of individual men, and this inward assurance, 
confirmed by the whole course of his life and experience, gave him, 
when he became aware of it, what was expected of him in emergen- 
cies, self-command, self-conquest, and self-sacrifice, of which latter 
he was capable in the highest degree, as Lange gives us proof. 
Among a thousand men, how many are there who can conceive of a 
man, destitute of favorable circumstances, working for years in a 
remote region, resolved upon a kind of vagabond life, subjected to 
privations of all kinds, and in spite of all this, and of misconception 
and unkind judgments, greeting every day's work joyfully? So 
felt, thought, and acted Middendorff. 

He lived in the world among men as they are, but he did not 
belong to the world ; he scarcely knew it ; yet he was a man who 
understood human existence, the inmost soul of the whole race and 
of individuals, as few do. It was possible to overlook him, but who- 
ever fince knew him could never forget him. It is conceivable also 
because of that quality which can be designated as deep inwardness 
of mind and sensibility, that he was specially attracted by little 
children and by womanly natures, and also attracted them. Com- 
pared with men he had a soft, tender, womanly nature. The im- 
pression he made immediately was such that one felt it to be impos- 
sible in his presence to undertake or to say anything coarse and 



2 40 WILLIAM MIDDENDORFF. 

uncouth, impure or vulgar. His mere presence ennobled and brougtit 
out the best in every one. In spite of this purity and loftiness, no 
one felt oppressed or constrained, but freed and exalted. 

And in spite of this effect of the nature born with him, he was a 
man, a whole man, adorned with all manly attributes, with delight in 
all that was powerful and virtuous, with energy of character and with 
the strongest feelings, full of earnestness and anger against every 
thing mean and unworthy. Endowed with the deepest sensibility, he 
was anything but what is usually called in these effeminate times, 
in the favorite sense of the word, a " charming man." Ho was much 
too conscientious and earnest for that, and the lofty, inspiring idea 
of his life left no room for weak sentimentality. He made the most 
earnest demands of those around him as well as of himself. A man 
was put into that tenderly-built body ; he had steeled himself early, 
he had fought at twenty in Lutzow's corps, and I learned to know 
him in the last five years as a robust mountain-traveler in the 
Thiiringian forests. He knew nothing of what men think belongs to 
advanced years, or what self-indulgence means. 

This man had to be seen among the girls or young ladies who were 
in Froebel's institute at Marienthal, near Liebenstein, which he 
carried on after Froebel's ,death ; had to be seen in the kindergarten 
at Liebenstein, to form a conception of the attachment not only of the 
young ladies, but of the smallest children for him. Froebel sur- 
passed him in the conceptions of his genius, but he surpasi^ed Froebel 
in clearness and direct fruitfulness of representation. The purity of 
mind, the enthusiasm for the idea which had captivated them, their 
magic powers over receptive feelings, they shared in common. Two 
hearts and one thought, two souls and one feeling, Orestes and 
Pylades, Castor and Pollux, Damon and Pythias, Froebel and Mid- 
dendorff ! Froebel knew what he had in MiddendorflP, and Midden- 
dorff, when old, still looked with wondering eyes up to Fi'oebel. Both 
were united by their ideal of education, both were nourished and 
greatly attracted by the spirit of Pestalozzi, whom they honored as 
long as they lived, without losing their own individuality. 

The world of to-day has lost the power of comprehending this. 
The leaders and guides of pedagogy have missed it all or they have 
never learnt to know it. They have had no idea of its existence or 
its possibility, and the endless majority of teachers know nothing of 
it. We ask, with the deepest pain, where has the enthusiasm for 
youth and the public weal gone ? Is there not discontent, despond- 
ency, mediocrity, in its place ? Does anything else proceed from 
those who consider themselves the reformers of the time, and 
declare themselves such, but wordy exhortations for a faith that does 



WILLIAM MIDDJSNDOKFF 141 

not rouse the spiritual powers of man, but paralyzes them ? And do 
they not seek for the salvation of the teachers and their pupils in 
stupefying morning and evening devotions, in liturgies and songs, and 
in other measures for the limiting of knowledge and ability ? 

How it is amongst the teachers of the present time, as to the 
enthusiasm, the aspiring, cheerful feeling, the inner enjoyment of 
their calling, which without these is a badly-rewarded, hirehng ser- 
vice ; how it is as to the pleasure with which they once looked for- 
ward to the teachers' conventions : he knows who can compare past 
times and the present. He also knows what spirit predominated 
among the young people who devoted themselves to the teachers' 
calling in the institutions which were animated by the youth-restor- 
ing Pestalozzian spirit ; and what is it now ? The whole world 
knows that men of the purest enthusiasm, of the noblest strivings, of 
the highest capacity of self sacrifice — that Friedrich Froebel, and 
all who adhered to him, especially Middendorff, were suspected of 
communism, of socialism, of atheism and free-thinking ! 

Was Middendorff also a Christian ? 

I hold it to be a disgrace, after such a man was found by expe- 
rience to be what he was, that such a question should arise. It pro- 
ceeds from those who seek for the essence of Christianity in externals, 
and who never have shared its spirit. Such low fellows, who now 
have an opportunity to show themselves off, but who are an abomi- 
nation to the more profound and modest men who dislike to cast the 
pearls of their souls before swine and to boast of their faith, — deserve 
no answer. It has, therefore, struck me unpleasantly that even 
Lange notices the question and answers it. I know very well 
whence the impulse came ; it lies very near ; but in spite of that we 
must not gratify the men of words and show, by recognizing the title 
to such a questioning. For what but vanity, spiritual pride, spite 
for the popularity of their superiors, what else but absorption in 
palpable externals and immeasurable arrogance in spite of their 
humble words, lies at the bottom of it ? 

Middendorff a Christian ? That St. John's-soul a Christian ? Thus 
ask those who presume to measure with their wooden rule the infinite 
diversity of minds ? Would these men, who think themselves alone 
good and pious — (the question is allowable in view of the well-known 
deeds of our day), would they have found Christ himself correct 
according to their system ? Hardly ; he was in his time declared by 
the scribes and creed-followers to be an adversary and a heretic. A 
feehng seizes me of mixed disgust and abhorrence when I think that 
such presumption even enters into the teachers' institutes, where it is 
looked upon as faith well pleasing to God, and is filtered into the 



142 WILLIAM MIDDENDORFP. 

young teachers. A dark, mournful spirit rests upon the schools. A 
fearful mistrust spreads over the teachers; fear arises when a 
hundred or fifty of them meet together without superintendence ; 
they have ceased "to believe in love and faith " ; even a Midden- 
dorff could not escape their suspicion, that pure, white human soul, 
in which, with a microscope, no trace of falsehood and deception could 
be discovered, who fought in youth for German life, German freedom 
and unity, and devoted his whole existence to the development and 
education of German youth ! 

What could this man as well as Froebel not have done for the 
creation of the most intrinsic devotion and love to our children, 
those rarest qualities in teachers, and of the equally rare knowledge of 
children, so peculiar to them, if the powers and qualities of these 
men, who do not return to us — foe when will another Pestalozzian 
time come ? — if they had been used in suitable places ? In vain 
they made life-long exertions to find a quite suitable and permanent 
asylum and sufficient means for their object, which was a pedagogic, 
central point, unifying and acting in all directions ; they tried in 
foreign lands, and even there did not find the right place ; the time 
was past when thousands flocked to Basedow, and a noble prince 
received him ; " faith in love and truth " had vanished, and even the 
hope of seeing a living central institution for the intellectual culture 
of the nation blooming out at "Weimar in Goethe's centennial jubilee, 
proved to be a delusion. They laughed at and derided our plan in 
Berlin as well as in Weimar, and what have they now reached ? 
One statue more instead of a living institution, an increase of the 
dead treasures of their closed museum, instead of a factor taking 
hold of the present time. Froebel mourned over it on his death-bed, 
and MiddendorfF was grieved. 

I pass over a great deal, and mention but one thing more. Mid- 
dendorfF was no writer ; writing was disagreeable to him ; the rush 
of his thoughts hindered a systematic arrangement of them ; yet he 
wrote as he could not help doing, intellectually and subjectively ; but 
his greatest power was not in that, it was shown in the living word ; 
he was an orator. He showed that in Hamburg, in Liebenstein, and 
in Salzungen. In the autumn of 1850 the friends of Froebel held 
a meeting in the Liebenstein * Kurhause,' at the well-known 
' Erdfalle.' On the second day was the exhibition of the fruiis of the 
efforts made for little children in the spirit of Froebel. The teachers 
told this, the kindergartners that. At last came Middendorff, who 
told what he had observed in the children of the peasantry and their 
mothers in the region around Keilhau, which he was in the habit of 
visiting on Sundays. It went home to all hearts. 



WILLIAM MIDDENDORFP. 



143 



And how he spoke in May, 1853, at Salzungen, at the fifth Gen- 
eral Assembly of German teachers ! I do not deny that there as 
well as here I trembled with joyful exultation. This extraordinary 
effect of the appearance of Middendorff I ascribe essentially to his 
sincerity. Everything was in harmony in him, bodily as well as 
spiritually. One always knew where to find him. A true, beautiful, 
beneficent image of him is left to his friends. He stands before their 
recollection in the perfected harmony of his being. In a man of 
this kind one cannot ask after this or that peculiarity, whether he 
possessed this or that quality ; that would be impertinent. 

He was not this or that ; he did not make himself this or that ; he 
was a unit, and therefore he was everything that he had the capacity 
of being. The pygmies and Lilliputians of the pedagogues of to-day 
wish to produce this and that; they wish to make everything, to 
make, that is to pervert and train, but they produce nothing, because 
they will not let nature, which is God-given, exist or grow. How 
far removed wert thou, noble friend, from this old-new " wisdom !" 
"Who of those present at the Liebenstein meeting will not remember 
how he dealt with the man who wanted to subordinate everything to 
the model of " Christian orthodoxy," and was not willing to recognize 
the right of each individual to his own natural development. 

He, the single-minded, harmoniously-cultivated, perfect man of 
his kind, felt, as others did, a detestation of the thought of what 
must yet become of the world which he found so glorious and beauti- 
ful in the manifoldness of its manifestations, if the priests of all sects 
should succeed, like shepherds, in casting the net of their faith, as 
the only saving one, over the heads of their flocks ! At this idea a 
terror seized the pure soul which knew so well what it owed to a 
natui'al, free development. How this man clung to nature, how he 
worshiped the hand of the Creator, when he dwelt upon the laws of 
man's nature ! His soul soared into God's free heaven, where he 
felt at home; there he was nearer to his God, there he understood 
the decrees of his genius. It moves me when I think of the 
expression of his face, the glory of his eyes, and the tone of his 
voice, as he poured out his inmost soul upon the top of the island 
mountain ! He was convinced of the immortal existence of the human 
soul, and of its progressive development as the source of blessedness. 

Where does that pure, transfigured human soul linger now ? To 
see and enjoy thee again, released from earthly tribulations, would 
alone be a heaven, an unspeakable rapture ! 

Have pia anima, anima Candida, 
Never-to-be-forgotten friend I 



144 



DIESTERWEQ AND FKOEBEL. 



It was by such hearty characterizations as tlus of Middendorff, and 
his earlier notices of Froebel and the Kindergarten in the Rheinische 
Blatter, and Padagogishes Jahrbuch, as soon as he became thoroughly 
acquainted with them, that Diesterweg rendered such essential service 
to the New Education. Until its principles and methods, its founder 
and co-laborers were recognized by Diesterweg, the ablest champion of 
a broad liberal elementary education for the whole people, and whose 
voice was potential in spite of the disfavor of the court, the Kinder- 
garten had not arrested the attention of pedagogical circles in Germany. 
Diesterweg, though late in the field, was the first to proclaim the full 
significance of play, Froebel's addition to pedagogical science, as the 
firm foundation in the child's earliest instruction, for his own Prussian- 
Pestalozzian system of intuitional teaching.* The Baroness Marenholtz 
Billow, in all her great and varied and ubiquitous service to the Frobe- 
lian cause, never did a better day's work than when she persuaded the 
great master, in spite of his prejudices " against all fooling in educational 
matters," to go and listen and see what Froebel had to say and do, on the 
15th of July, 1849, in his little modest farm house in Liebenstein. He 
went, was charmed, and was satisfied that Froebel " had actually some- 
thing of a seer and looked into the inmost nature of the child as no 
one else had done." From that day he went every day for weeks after- 
wards, with the " Mother and Cosset Songs " under his arm, to learn 
more of the Kindergarten and converse with Froebel. 

Both Di«sterweg and Froebel were pupils of Pestalozzi, and both 
found, in the instinctive activity of the child, the impulse and method 
of mental development; but Froebel was the first to formulate these 
methods in the Nursery and Kindergarten for the full development of 
the entire human being, and furnish the basis of the intuitional instruc- 
tion which Pestalozzi was the first to discover, and Diesterweg and other 
Directors of Teachers' Seminaries to develop into a system of elementary 
education for the people. 

The Prussian-Pestalozzian system of elementary instruction, as de- 
scribed by Stowe, Bache and Mann, before the restrictions of the 
" Regulativ " of 1854 were applied to the currriculum and methods of 
the Primary Teachers' Seminaries, was the creation of such Directors of 
Seminaries as Hamisch, Diesterweg, and others of the Pestalozzian 
school. 

In the original issue of the Wegweisser we find no special recognition 
of the Kindergarten. In the latest edition, there is a very valuable 
paper on both Froebel and the Kindergarten by Ferdinand Winthur.f 

* For the contentB of this model Guide for German teacherg, see Barnard's Jonmal of 
Education, vol. vii, p. 312. In the same connection will be found a brief memoir of this 
great teacher and popular educator., Diesterweg' s chapter in edition of 1854, on Intui- 
tional and Speaking Exercises, as published in same Journal (Vol xii, p. 411-430), and Dr. 
Busse's article in edition of 1876, republished in Vol. xxx, p. 417-450, are in the true 
spirit and method of Froebel applied to children after leaving the Kindergarten. 

t This paper will be found in Barnard's Journal xxxi, p. 82-90. 



FRIEDRICH ADOLF WILHELM DIESTERWEG. 



Fkiedrich Adolf Wilhelm Diestebweg, an eminent educator, 
and efficient promoter of the general principles of Pestalozzi, was 
born in the then Rhine provinces of Prussia, at Seigen, in Nassau, 
October 29th, 1790. His first education was received at the 
Latin school of his native place. Thence he went to the univers- 
ity of Herborn, intending to devote himself to the study of theol- 
ogy ; but his academic course was finished at Tubingen. At first a 
private tutor in Manheim, he was afterward second teacher in the 
secondary school at Worms ; and in 1811 entered the model school 
at Frankfort-on-the-Mayne, where his holy zeal accomplished much 
good. Having become known as a scientifically-trained and well- 
practiced educator, he was chosen second rector of the Latin school 
at Elberfeld. From this place he was called, in 1820, to be director 
of the teachers' seminary at Meurs. In this place he labored with 
intelligence, energy, and singleness of purpose, during a series of 
years, for the cause of elementary instruction, which, under the 
French domination, had been entirely neglected on the Rhine. He 
was, moreover, very useful as a writer— discussing more particularly 
mathematics and the German language. In 1827, he commenced 
publishing (by Schwerz, in Schwelin,) the " Rhenish Gazette of 
Education and Instruction " {Rheinische Blatter fur Erziehung und 
Unterricht,) with especial reference to the common schools. The first 
volume contained much valuable matter, much condensed ; and the 
succeeding volumes (to 1859,) have not fallen beneath it in excel- 
lence. Through this periodical, the educationists of the Rhine prov- 
inces were afforded a good opportunity for discussing pedagogical 
subjects ; upon which much interest was then beginning to appear. 

In 1833, Diesterweg was appointed director of the royal seminary 
for city teachers, at Berlin. Here he labored for eighteen years ; his 
eyes fixed fast and unvarying upon his object — exposing all sorts of 
pedagogical faults and weaknesses, seeking in every way to raise the 
position of teachers, and pursuing his work without any fear of men. 
The meetings of the Pedagogical Society of Berlin were set on foot 
by him. In 1849, his connection with the seminary was terminated 
by the government, in consequence of his popular sympathies mi 
10 



146 FRIEDRICH ADOLF WILHELM DIESTERWEG. 

1848. During this period, Diesterweg ipuhMshed " Autobioffraphies 
of Distinguished Educators,'" " Education of the Lower Classes,^^ 
" Degeneracy of our Universities^'' " Education for Patriotism, c&c," 
" Controversial Inquiries on Educational Subjects.'^ In these writ- 
ings, Diesterweg appears as a man of progress ; as one who seeks to 
reconcile the existing discrepancy between actual life and learning ; 
between living practice and dead scholastic knowledge ; between 
civilization and learning. The works contain true and striking 
thoughts. In his zeal for good objects, the author sometimes over- 
passed the bounds of moderation, and assailed the objects of his 
opposition with too much severity. 

His " Pedagogical Travels through the Danish Territories,''^ [Pad- 
agogische Reise Nachden Ddnischen Staaten,) 1836, involved him iu 
an active controversy with several Danish literati, and especially with 
Zerrenner, of Magdeburg. Diesterweg's objections to the monitorial 
system of instruction, which prevails in the schools of Denmark, 
are : — That it modifies, decreases, or destroys the teacher's influence 
upon his scholars ; that it is disadvantageous to their outward and 
inward intercourse ; reduces to a minimum the precious period of 
close intercourse between the ripe man and the future men ; and 
sinks the school, in by far the majority of cases, into a mere mindless 
mechanism, by which the children, it is true, acquire facility in 
reading and writing, and in a manner outwardly vivid and active, 
but in reality altogether unintelligent ; but become intellectually 
active not at all. That Diesterweg is in the right in this matter, is 
daily more extensively believed. 

In 1846, Dr. Diesterweg took an early and influential part in the 
celebration by German teachers of the centennial birthday of Pes- 
talozzi, and in founding an institution for orphans, as a living and 
appropriate monument to the great regenerator of modern popular 
education. 

His " Year Book^'' or " Almanac,^'' (Jahrbach,) which commenced 
in 1851, is a valuable contribution to the current discussion of educa- 
tional topics, and to the history of the literature and biography of 
education. 

Diesterweg's " Guide for German Teachers,''^ ( Wegweiser fur 
Deutscher Schrer,) of which a third enlarged and improved edition 
appeared in 1854, in two large volumes, is one of the best existing 
manuals for teachers, of both elementary and high schools, and has 
been made a text-book in several teachers' seminaries. We give the 
contents of this valuable " Guide," 



DIESTERWEG'S WEGWEISER. l^fj 

DiESTERWEG, F. A. W., " Guide for German Teachers," Wegweiser fwr Deutacher 
Schrer. 2 vols. pp. 675 and 700. 

CONTENTS. VOL. I. 

Paob 
Introdcction T. 

1. Dedication to F. Frbbel III. 

2. Preface to Third and Fourth editions VII. 

3. From the address to Denzel, in the Second edition XIV. 

4. From Preface to First edition XIX. 

5. From Preface to Second edition XXIV. 

6. Conclusion XXXII. 

PART I. 

GENERAL VIEWS. 

I. Purpose and problem of human life, and the teacher's life 3 

II. VVliat are the conditions of success in endeavoring to secure, by means of books, intellect- 
ual culture, insight, and knowledge 19 

III. Introduction to the study of elements of pedagogy, didactics and methodology 49 

1. To whom these studies are especially recommended, and to whom not 49 

2. What has hitherto been accomplished in such books as have been devoted to peda- 

gogy, didactics, and methodology in general, or with special reference to the element- 
ary ichools 52 

3. The chief constituents of the ideas of pedagogy, didactics, and methodology 58 

4. The best works on the elements of pedagogy, didactics, and methodology 60 

(1.) On education (and instruction,) generally 62 

(2.) On the whole subject of school education and instruction 82 

(3.) On school discipline 99 

(4.) Psychology and logic 104 

(.5.) Training of teachers (seminaries) 107 

(6.) Education of girls Ill 

(7.) Relations of school to state and church 119 

(8.) School inspection OOO 

(9.) Social pedagogy, (social reforms, temperance, &c.) 124 

(10.) Infant schools 129 

(11.) Mutual system of school organization 135 

(12.) Higher burgher schools 138 

(13.) Bibliography 143 

(14.) Works which include biographies 145 

(15.) Popular writings 151 

(16.) School laws 156 

(17.) School reform 157 

(18.) School organization in 1848 162 

(19.) Periodicals 168 

IV. Human faculties, and didactics 172 

1. Rules for instruction, as to the scholar (the subject) 204 

2. Rules as to what is taught (the object) 254 

3. Rules as to external relations 268 

4. Rules as to the teacher 278 

PART II. 

SPEOIAL DEPAKTMENTa. 

I. Intuitional instruction; exercises in language 302 

II. Religious instruction ; by K. Bormann, of Berlin 332 

nr. Rending 381 

IV. German language 4.56 

V. Writing; by Prof Dr. Miidler, and C. Reinbott, of Berlin 532 

VI. Singing ; by Hentschel, of Weissenfels -. 5.59 

VII. Drawing; by Heutschel 672 

VOL. II. 

Vni. Geograpliy ; by K. Bormann 3 

IX. History; by W. Prange, of Bunzlau ._. 40 

X. Natural History ; by A. Liiben, of Merseburg ' 251 

XI. Naiural Science, mathematical geography, astronomy 306 

XII. Arithmetic 343 

XIII. Geometry 395 

XIV. French; by Dr. Knebel, of (Koln) Cologne 4^6 

XV. English; by Dr. Schmitz, of Berlin 477 

XVI. Genetic method in foreign languages; by Dr. Mnger, of Eisenach 492 

XVII. Instruction of the blind ; by J. G. Knie, of Rre.^lau 567 

XVIII. Instruction of the deaf-mutes; by Hill, of Weissenfels.., 601 

XIX. Lnve of country, patriotism, and connected subjects 675 

XX. External situation of the German common school teachers 727 

XXI. School discipline — plan of teacliing and of work 770 

Appendix ; by G. Hentschel 791 

List of authors mentioned 795 



148 DIESTERWEG ON FROEBEL. 

In his notice of Froebel and the kindergarten, in the Jahrluch for 1851, 
Diesterweg sums up his estimate of the former as " a man of uncommon 
power and original views." Like Comenius and Ratich and Pestalozzi, 
he could not rest, with the inspiration of new ideas in his soul. He 
must go on, from one portion of the field to another — from one institu- 
tion to another — under an irrepressible impulse to break the path for 
new truths. Age with him did not deaden his interest in children, and 
the older he grew the deeper was his fondness for the youngest, whose 
restless activity found in his sympathy and devices its freshest satisfac- 
tion. A student of Pestalozzi, to whom in taste, vocation, and fate he 
had great resemblance, he carried his investigations into the philoso- 
phy of education still deeper, and evolved methods of development out 
of the child's activity, in harmony with the nature of the infant mind, 
which his master sought in vain at later stages of the child's growth. 
Like Pestalozzi, he strove to attach to his work the agency and influ- 
ence of women — Pestalozzi limiting his efforts to mothers, while Froebel 
organized young women into classes for special training for his kinder- 
garten, and everywhere proclaiming women to be the true educators of 
tlie race, and that in fitting themselves for their mission as teachers 
they would most directly and efiectively improve and elevate themselves. 

Froebel differs from Pestalozzi in attaching less importance to books, 
and, indeed, would dispense with all printed manuals to a later stage 
of development, and finds in the natural activity — the play-impulse, 
the motive and method of mental and moral, as well as of physical 
growth. While he believes, with Pestalozzi, that home and the mother 
are the God-indicated place and protector of the infant, Froebel believes, 
and acted on the idea, that the child has a social nature, which seeks 
and profits by companionship with other children, and that for short 
periods in each day such companionship should be provided and regu- 
lated. Hence the kindergarten gradually rose in his conception, as the 
play-place of children, and that in the growing and most impressionable 
period of their lives everything should be shaped to foster a healthy 
growth, and make and deepen the right impressions. 

In devising and improving plays and occupations for children in 
his kindergarten, Froebel has shown the genius of a poet and an in- 
ventor; and, although he may not have exhausted the subject, his 
Mother Play and Nursery Songs is an original and most valuable contri- 
bution to our manuals of education. 

Like Pestalozzi, Froebel relies on the intuitive method in teaching 
anything new — and goes beyond mere inspection and handling, where 
the case will admit of it, and resorts to actual doing, to real experience 
of knowledge. In the field of occupations he utilizes the child's in- 
stinct of motion and construction, and develops those aptitudes into 
habits which afterwards distinguish the artist and artisan. In this 
direction the kindergarten prepares as well for life as for the school, 
and, without any forced, unnatural methods, a habit of productive labor 
is formed unconsciously in play. 



BERTHA VON MAEENHOLTZ-BtJLOW 

AND THE KINDERGARTEN. 



ME\IOIR.* 

The Baroness von Marenholtz-Bulow, whose life work is insepa- 
rably associated with the dissemination of Froebel's system of child- 
culture in different countries, belongs to the Redum line of a 
princely family whose name appears in the time of Charles the 
Great. Her father, Baron Frederick von Biilow-Wendhausen, the 
owner of the fine estate of Kiiblingen in the Duchy of Brunswick, 
was president of the Ducal Chamber and member of the regency 
charged with the administration of affairs during the long minority 
of the Duke. Her mother was the imperial Countess von Wartens- 
leben, of the Mark of Brandenburg. 

The Baroness Bertha was born in Brunswick, March 15,1816, 
the second of eight sisters. Not yet twenty years old, she was mar- 
ried to Baron v. Marenholtz, lord by primo-geniture of Gross- 
Schwulper and a member of the Privy Council in Brunswick, and 
afterwards Court Marshal in Hanover. By this marriage she had 
one son, whose education till his death at the age of twenty, with 
that of several children of her husband by a prior marriage, was 
superintended in all its details by the Baroness, who, in addition to 
the training which the best private teachers could impart to herself 
and her own sisters, had the higher educative advantage of practical 
work, by which her own thoughtful mind was always accustomed to 
the consideration of pedagogical problems. Her own reflections on 
what she read and did, and what she saw done by her teachers in 
her own and her father's family, were recorded by her in a book, 
and which she afterwards found were in singular accord with the 
principles and methods which Friedrich Froebel had worked out in 
his profounder study of child-nature and nurture. 

AVhen free to act for herself, the Baroness broke away from the 
brilliant but narrow circle of court life to which she was born, and 
without entering the field of social reform, as the avowed champion 
of certain ideas, she sought in every way to acquaint herself witli 

* We are indebted mainly for the facts of tliis Memoir to a pamplilet of 150 pages by 
Lous Walter, printed in Dresden in 1881 by Berlag von Alwin Huahe, with the title Beiiha 
V. Marenholtz Bulow in ihrer Bedeutung fur das Werk of Fr. Froebel. 



150 BERTHA VON MARENHOLTZ-BULOW. 

the best methods of education ; and in this spirit in the summer of 
1849, while sojourning at the Baths of Liebenstein in Thuringia, 
introduced herself to Froebel, who had quite recently settled down 
on a small farm in the neighborhood of the Springs, and was train- 
ing a class of young women to become Kindergartners. She has 
told the story of this interview and of their intercourse, whicli con- 
tinued .during that and her subsequent visits to the Baths, in her 
charming and instructive volume of " Reminiscences."* 

In these personal interviews she became thoroughly acquainted 
with the principle of the Kindergarten and its application, both to 
the actual development of young children, and in the training of 
young Kindergartners, by the great master himself. To these oj>- 
portunities of educational study were added elaborate discussions of 
the philosophy and practice of the new education between its first 
expounder and Dr. Diesterweg, the acknowledged* head of the Pes- 
talozzian method in Germany, and several experienced men of scien- 
tific and practical ability who were concerned with actual teaching, 
and with the administration of systems of public instruction, so ad- 
mirably described by herself.* 

With every advantage for reaching cultivated people which bright 
and solid mental endowments, improved by the best private teaching 
and select social experience, could give, — with a loving acceptance 
of the doctrine of human development, by rational methods applied 
to the earliest conscious action of the child by agencies which nec- 
essarily belong to the nurture period of the human being, and ex- 
tend into school and self-activity, which the insight and experience 
of such born educators as Pestalozzi, Froebel, and Diesterweg have 
brought to a good degree of practical efficiency, — thus equipped by 
nature, study, and observation added to home experience, the Bar- 
oness von Marenholtz-Bulow has not only given to the world, and 
especially to her sex, a beautiful example of a broadly beneficent life- 
work, but the results of that personal work has already entered into 
the educational institutions and literature of nations, to an extent 
not yet recorded of any other woman in the annals of education. Of 
this, her personal services to the Froebelian Education in different 
countries, we shall speak elsewhere. We close this brief introduction 
to a fuller treatment of her own understanding of Froebel's idea of 
the Child, with a List of her Publications (see page 127, 128), made 
up from Mr. Walter's pamphlet. 

* Reminiscences of Friediich Froebel. Translated by Mrs. norace Maun, and publiehed 
by Lee & Shepard, Boston, 1877, p. a59. 



BERTHA VON MARENHOLTZ-BULOW. 151 

1. Personal Services for FroebeVn System. 

The Baroness became acquainted with Froebel in May, 1849, and once 
thoroughly possessed of his aims and methods, she began in that summer a 
work of dissemination, which she still continues (in 1881) with unabated 
zeal, and with still widening influence. In July, 1849, she had brought 
one of the best practical educators of Germany into a personal knowl- 
edge of Froebel's work, and thus secured a medium of communication 
with the pedagogic world. Diesterweg, before the close of the year, 
in a holiday book for young people, his Rheinische Blatter, and his 
Pedagogical Year Book, had set teachers and children to reading about 
the new education going on at the Baths of Liebenstein. In the year 
following, another seminary director and school official (Dr. Bormann 
of Berlin), through her introduction, had become interested in Froebel's 
original views of the child's activity, and proclaimed their importance 
through the Brandenburg School Journal. 

It was by her womanly tact that Froebel and Middendorff were introduced 
to the knowledge of the court circles of Weimar and Meiningen, and thus 
secured an opportunity of making the system known to people who set 
as well as those who follow the fashion, in schools as well as in dress and 
manners. In this way his little children and young kindergartners were 
transferred from the narrow limits of an unsuitable farmhouse, to the 
spacious apartments of the "Hunting Box" of the Duke of Meiningen, 
with the use of the grass plot, with its shrubbery and lindens for his out- 
of-door morning lessons and movement plays. The attractions of this 
spot helped the Baroness in her efforts to bring thoughtful and influential 
persons to witness the methods, and listen to the explanations given by 
Froebel of their educating aim in the development of the child. 

In the winter of 1850, which she spent in Weimar, she laid the founda- 
tion for the first kindergarten there, interested the Grand Duchess of 
Russia to introduce Froebel's methods into the orphan asylums of St. 
Petersburg, and the Countess of Hesse to employ one of Froebel's pupils, 
Miss Kramer, in the early education of her son, the future prince. In the 
summer of that year she brought the Minister of Education in the Princi- 
pality of Saxe- Weimar (Von Wydenbrugk) and Froebel into conference, 
and several men of science, and teachers, who afterwards became advo- 
cates of the system in special treatises, or in periodicals. 

In the winter of 1850 51, both the Baroness and Diesterweg were busy 
in making the system known in Berlin, and in the following summer the 
pen of many writers were employed in making known the educative 
value of the kindergarten festivals, such as was given at the castle of 
Altenstein. The article by Herr Borman, then director of the Berlin 
seminary for the preparation of female teachers, in the Brandenburg 
School Journal, should have shielded Froebel and his kindergarten from 
the cruel interdict of the Prussian minister of education, which was 
published in August 7, 1851. That interdict damaged the kindergarten 
in court circles for a life time, and although it was officially canceled in 
1860, the progress of the work has been slow in Prussia. 

In 1854, the Baroness visited London in the interest of the kindergarten, 
where the good work had been begun by Madame Ronge, the details 
of which will be found elsewhere. She thus writes of her Paris work: 



152 KINDERGARTEN IN FRANCE. 

Marerilholtz-Biilow's Labors in Paris. 

When I went to Paris in January, 1855, Froebel's name was wholly 
unknown there. Nor did I know a single person in that great city, 
whither I went without a letter of introduction, from London, where I 
had been spending half a year, not without results, in the propagation of 
Froebel's cause. My decision to go was so suddenly taken that there 
was no time to procure introductions or recommendations. My confi- 
dence in the intrinsic truth of the cause induced me to venture the exper- 
iment, whose success certainly proves the justice, the appropriateness, 
and even the necessity of introducing the Froebelian education to the 
French. It not only found acceptance wherever I spoke of it, but re- 
sulted many times in the immediate establishment of Kindergartens. My 
wish that the votaries of Froebel's method would work for its spread in 
foreign lands, induced me to show that even a foreigner in a foreign 
land may do this. The chief conditions are: a full knowledge of the 
fundamental thoughts of Froebel, and consequently a deep conviction of 
the worth of the cause ; also the knowledge of the practical use of the 
Kindergarten occupations, and ability to speak currently the language 
of the country. Recommendations to influential people are obviously of 
the greatest use. I therefore addressed myself, although without recom- 
mendations, to influential persons, in order to secure the necessary sup- 
port of their presence at my lectures. Now that Froebel and his cause 
are so well known, and many prejudices and much ill-will are overcome, 
infinitely less difficulty in spreading the cause is met with than at that 
time, almost twenty years ago. This difficulty is not to be denied, and 
can only be understood in its whole scope by those who have undertaken 
to introduce a new cause into the great cities of foreign lands. For a 
woman, who undertook this work alone, it was obviously a far greater 
task than it would have been for a man. By the publicity alone of the 
necessary discourses to be pronounced, the latter would have been able 
to secure a more rapid spread of it. But experience in different countries 
has convinced me that it is far easier for a woman to gain a hearing in 
intelligent circles, in other countries than in Germany, where the public 
action of women is limited to a very narrow range. 

That time of my activity in Paris was very favorable for the opposition. 
People were afraid of all associations, without which, in our days, the 
realization of an idea is scarcely possible; and society was also dejected 
about political matters. And apart from many other causes was the mis. 
trust of anything new that came from another country. 

The majority of those who showed the liveliest interest and the best 
understanding of that side of the cause, were, almost always disciples oi 
Fourrier, or at least those acquainted with his doctrine. They were fully 
penetrated with the importance of educational influences upon the first, 
earliest age, and were striving to cure the mistakes of society upon that 
subject. Among the men of this direction of thought Froebel's methoc 
found the most support, but the exception to this, even among that class 
were the quite exclusive votaries of Fourrier. They said the whole o? 
this system was given by their master, and some of them strove to dis 



, KINDERGARTEN IN FRANCE. I53 

criminate between the ideas of Froebel and those of Fourrier, even before 
they had seen the fundamental difference in the ground principles of the 
two thinkers, especially the positively religious side in Froebel's views. 

Every thinker in France, as well as elsewhere, who has any interest in 
the progress of humanity, and who sees the necessity of new conditions 
to bring about that end, wishes for a new education, in order to see new 
men come forward. Nowhere else — and least in Germany, where the 
prophet of method is at home — have I found such ready sympathy, so 
much comprehension and profound penetration into Froebel's ideas, as 
in Paris. That the reason of this is to be sought in the intellectual life 
of great centers, as well as in the circumstance that many circles of intel- 
ligent people were opened to me, is not to be doubted, but the fact is 
very striking that the votaries won there belonged to the most various 
and opposing parties of France, politically, religiously, and socially. 

In no case have I found the often-expressed view confirmed that it is 
more difficult to break the way for the cause in catholic than in protestant 
countries. The distrust excited in Germany by the religious side of the 
cause I have seldom met with in foreign countries, and always in less 
measure. Indeed, they have received the cause more free from prejudice, 
since, on account of its novelty, no accusation of heresy had been brought. 

In the lower classes I have«iever and nowhere found so much true and 
intellectual agreement in the practical side of Froebel's method as in 
Paris. The handicraftsmen recognized the importance of it as a prepara- 
tion for all work, and often with surprising sharpsightedness. 

As the Empress was the titular President of the Central Committee of 
the Salles d'Asyle, and the Cardinal de Tours, Morlot (afterwards Arch- 
bishop of Paris), was acting President, the introduction of the method 
into the public asylums was reached only by direct application to these 
two authorities. My application to the Empress was immediately con- 
sidered, and the Minister of Instruction (de Fortoul) was asked to look 
into the cause. In audience with him, I expressed the wish that he 
would name a committee for the practical examination of it, which was 
appointed in the State Normal School, rue Ursuline No. 10, under the 
conduct of Mad. Pape-Carpentier. This was done. 

After this, for three months, under my guidance, the children of the 
institution were occupied according to Froebel's method, and the above- 
named commission, after the official examination, declared itself not only 
satisfied with the desired result, but even the Ministry of Instruction rec- 
ommended, in its official report, " that the Kindergarten method be intro- 
duced into existing institutions, and that the Kindergartens be connected 
with the elementary schools as soon as possible." With the permanent 
introduction of the Froebelian occupations into her institute. Mad. Pape- 
Carpentier, a very deserving lady, was requested, and the order issued, 
for the improvement of the asylum, to instruct the pupils of her normal 
school to be conductors of the method in asylums. To describe the com- 
munications made in the course of the first introduction of the cause 
into France would carry me too far. The following instances are sufficient. 

A protestant lady. Mad. Andre KOchlin, built a hall in rue de la Pepin- 
ifere. No, 81, for the introduction of Froebel's method. By the support 



154 KINDERGARTEN IN FRANCE. 

of Mad. Jules Mallet (a well-known philanthropist in Paris), I also intro- 
duced it to the sisters of St. Vincent de Paul, whom I instructed in the 
method in the Little Orphan Asylum, Chausse Menilmontant, 119. Also 
in the Asylum of the Deaconnesses, 95 rue de Neuilly, and in the protest- 
ant school, 19 rue St. Genevieve. The introduction of single occupa- 
tions was effected in vaiious institutions. 

A practical course of instruction in the method was introduced intq 
an institution for young ladies, rue St. Etienne, 40. In the Cloister 
V Assomption, the directress of the asylum, Sister Marie, a very intelligent 
nun, was so interested in the method and learnt it so industriously with 
my help, that they would have introduced it into her institution at her 
earnest request, if she had not been called to Spain by the order of the 
Superior of her order, when we were in the midst of our activity. The 
nuns of the cloister are very imjustly charged with being nnrrcw and 
one-sided, in consequence of the passive obedience to which they are 
bound. In some cloisters, I found many intellectual women who were 
truly waked up to the appreciation of Froebel's system. 

The great injury done by the one-sided spiritual education given in 
catholic countries, in the institutions conducted by nuns, cannot be denied. 
The unmistakable traces of it are seen everywhere. The mechanical 
instruction in the schools of protestant countries is in full tide also. 
Everywhere, even in the earliest childhood, we find the levelling and 
breaking down of the mind instead of free and fresh development and 
awakening. These institutions make the impression that they are waiting 
for the magic word which will dispel the bann and create for child-nature 
the free motion and gay carelessness suited to it. Would that every- 
where the right formula could soon be recognized in Froebel's idea, and 
the present mechanical and repressing system even of existing Kindergart- 
ens, be banished forever. 

The present want of training-schools for Kindergartners in foreign 
countries makes the quick spread of Kindergartens impossible. Those 
educated in Germany are rarely sufficiently versed in foreign languages, 
and very unwillingly leave home. The present incapacity of the majority 
of those who are active abroad destroys very much the good opinion that 
has been gained of the cause. On the other side, the ignorance of the 
German language, as well as the frequent lack of means for distant jour- 
neys, prevents the foreign women from using the German training insti- 
tutions. Only when each country possesses a training-school for Kinder- 
gartners (and consequently a normal school for teachers), will the present 
occupants of these positions be able to be supplanted. 

This was my repeated experience in the various countries in which I 
made known the cause; the contemplated founding of institutions was 
again and again prevented by the want of directors to carry the plans 
into execution. 

Even in France the above-mentioned beginnings could not have been 
made, if I had not been able to procure Kindergartners from Germany 
who could speak French. It is true that many other hindrances have 
been in the way of increasing such institutions during my presence there; 
hindrances which are palpable to the intelligent. At that time I sent 



KINDERGARTEN IN PKANCB. 155 

three ladies from Paris to Germany, to learn what was necessary for the 
conduct of Kindergartens. One of these, Miss Chevalier, is at present 
at the head of a Kindergarten in Orleans, and is intrusted by the author- 
ities with the instruction of directresses of asylums. Another is ia 
Jliilhausen, in Alsace, where I made the cause known in 1857. A Kin- 
dergarten was established there for the well-to-do classes, which is con- 
ducted by a Kindergartner from Hamburg. 

Various beginnings of similar Kindergartens went down, after my 
departure, on account of personal relations, and in consequence of the 
dissolution of a society which I had founded. The favorable moment 
for the full introduction of the cause into Paris has not yet arrived. The 
future will bring il yet, and then there will be a quick and universal 
acceptance of it after the first foundation has been laid. 

One of the numerous proofs of the recognition of the cause in Paris 
was the offer of 100,000 francs from the Countess of Noailles for a per- 
manent Kindergarten, in case the Emperor would grant the use of a part 
of the Park of Ronceaux. I had obtained more than a hundred signa- 
tures to my appeal for it on the part of well-known and influential per- 
sons. The good reception which this met with in higher places was 
prevented by local and personal interests from bringing the desired result. 
Perhaps ten years hence we shall everywhere find Kindergartens in the 
great parks and gardens of cities. Nowhere else but in Paris have the 
journals responded so readily and willingly to the Kindergarten cause. 

La Presse (in 1855 and 1856) edited by Mr. G. de Girardin, Journal de 
debats. Gazette de France, SiScle, La Revue Britanique, La Revue de 
deux Mondes, La Revue' de Paris, Le disciple de Jesus Christ, Le Journal 
de la Jeunesse, La vie humaine, Le Monde, L'ami del enfance, Le Bul- 
letin des Creches, L'ami des sciences, etc., representing all parties. 

Mr. Riche-Gardon, editor of La vie Humaine, founded a journal specially 
for the support of the Kindergarten cause. 

In Tours, I could only make a little beginning for the cause. In 
Montpelier, Mad. Mares placed a German Kindergartner over an 
asylum, but she did not answer her expectations. Mad. Mares had heard 
my lectures in Paris. Froebel's occupations, however, were introduced. 

The want of works by French authors upon this subject was one of 
the greatest obstacles to the spread of the cause in France, and in coun- 
tries where the French language is spoken. This is what obliged me to 
publish my first little treatises in French, for which I was often blamed 
in German circles. This is the reason why we have a French manual 
and no German one. As they could use in Germany Froebel's own first 
pupils, the need of one was less felt there than in foreign lands, and I 
was obliged to create one for instruction in the method. Its contents are 
the foundation of the manual published by H. Goldhammer. 

It was also necessary to have the materials for play manufactured in 
each country. To be obliged to pay the duties upon these is always an 
obstacle. In France, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, and England I 
found handicraftsmen who prepared them very well after patterns given. 

The following are extracts from many French letters addressed to me, 
from 1855 to 1859. See page — 



156 BERTHA VON MARENHOLTZ-BULOW. 

The following citations from letters addressed to the Baroness, and 
published in the appendix to her "Education by Doing" CDie. Arbeit), 
show the impressions produced on some of the first minds of France by 
her exposition of Froebel's system in 1855-57. 

Cardinal Archbishop Merlot writes: "I am astonished at the 
far-sightedness of Froebel, who has found means to exercise each one of 
the child's organs." 

" Froebel's methods offer just what is wanting in our asylums, which 
are only nurseries — nothing more." 

"As president of the Commission of Asylums, I will see that the 
methods of Froebel are properly tested by actual trial, in the model and 
training institution of Madame Pape-Carpentier. " 

M. Marbeau, Founder of the Creche, and President of the Inter- 
national Society of Charity, writes : 

"I feel the liveliest interest in your Froebelian method, and earnestly 
wish for its introduction into France. We shall draw nourishment for 
future generations from Froebel's discoveries. I will speak on the subject 
at the next meeting of the Society of Charity." 

BucHET DE CuBiERE, an eminent mathematician, writes : 

" I shall never forget the evening on which you explained for three 

hours Froebel's great thoughts on the education .of the race, and the rich 

material which you showed he had created for the young of the future. 

He is one of the most eminent men that Germany has produced in 

this century. 

M. GuEPiEN, physician and naturalist of Nantes, and author of the 
Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of the 19th Century, writes: 

" Froebel's educational method is the most complete and rational that I 
am acquainted with. On my return from Paris I took steps to have 
a paper prepared for the Academic Society of Nantes. My wife will 
write to several ladies to interest themselves practically in the establish- 
ment of societies and Kindergartens. I will write to friends in Barce- 
lona and Madrid, where your treatise will be printed in Spanish. Our 
newspapers will insert articles — the Courier, the Journal of the Loire, 
Journal of Commerce, etc." 

Madame Mallet, author of the treatise on Prisons for Women, 
crowned by the Academy, writes : 

" I agree with you, we must go into families and teach the mothers how 
to develop aright the first germs of observation and intelligence. We 
must induce them to go to the Kindergarten to see and feel the right way 
of treating their own children." 

Dr. Laverdant, physician and author, writes: 

"Froebel's method, as expounded by you, develops the universal, the 
creative, and the artistic faculties in harmony. In your next conference, 
which will be composed of representatives of all shades of religious and 
social thought — Catholics, half-catholics, and non-catholics, fourrierites, 
phalansterists, Protestants, rationalists, etc., I hope you will dwell on 
the relations of women as mothers and members of society to this work 
of child-culture, and on the utilitarian element which enters into the 
Kindergarten method. 

Abbe Mitraud, author of La Democratic et la Catholicisme, writes: 
"I accept Froebel's idea, theory, and method, in all its magnitude and 
fruitfulness. Its tendencies to pantheism will be modified by sound 
Catholicism, to which I give my faith and understanding. You must 
visit Italy and Rome. I will co5perate with you. " 

M. Michelet, the historian : 

" By a stroke of genius Froebel has found what the wise of all time 
have sought in vain — the solution of the problem of human education." 



BBRTHA VON MARENHOLTZ-BULOW 157 

While achieving this mighty conquest in the field of official, literary, 
and scientific influence in Paris, and preparing the way for a silent and 
gradual change in the methods of child culture in the asylums and infant 
schools of Paris,* the Baroness did not leave other portions of France 
and adjacent countries unvisited and untouched by her magnetic presence. 

In the summer of 1857 she attended the International Congress of 
Beneficence in Frankfort, and by her lectures in German and French 
interested some of the best minds in Europe in Froebel's system of educa- 
tion — and particularly the founders and conductors of Farm Schools and 
Asylums for neglected children. In December of the same year, on the 
invitation of the Prime Minister Rogier, who had become interested in 
her work at Frankfort, she visited Brussels, and addressed conferences of 
inspectors, teachers, directors of gardiennes or infant schools, who came 
together on invitation of the Minister. Out of this work, which was con- 
tinued for five months, kindergartens were established in all the chief cities 
of Belgium, the methods were introduced into infant schools, and by a 
decree of the government, " instruction in the system of the great German 
pedagogue" was given in all the Normal schools and Training classes for 
primary school teachers. The kindergarten is now recognized as the first 
grade of all formal instruction — both public and private. 

In the summer of 1858 and the two years following this indefatigable 
worker was in Holland, Switzerland, and France helping to found societies 
in which earnest women could work together for the promotion of the 
Froebelian system, — in Amsterdam, the Hague, and other cities in Hol- 
land; inMulhausen; in Zurich, Neuchatel, Berne, and other large cities 
in Switzerland, under the auspices of the Swiss Society of Public Utility. 
In this way a public interest was awakened, and the public intelligence 
was cultivated, until in several cantons the kindergarten directly by name, 
or as infant school, is now a recognized grade in the system of public 
instruction. In the canton of Geneva, Madam de Portugal is inspectress of 
all the institutions of this grade, and a regular normal course of training 
is conducted by Miss Progler. 

She had previously conferred with advanced schoolmen in Bohemia, 
Hungary, and Austria proper, by whom the Kindergarten was earlier 
than elsewhere recognized by the highest ministerial authorities of 
education as essential to true pedagogical progress. The Minister von 
Stremayr, in 1857, induced several municipal authorities to convert their 
Children's Asylums into Infant Schools, with Froebel's methods; and 
subsequently at Vienna and Gratz, to establish Kindergartens "to 
strengthen and complete the family education for the youngest children, 
and prepare them for the school instruction which is to follow after the 
sixth year." It is now made obligatory on all directors of Normal 
Schools and Training classes, to give instruction in the principles and 
practice of Froebel's System. 

•According to the report of Mr. Grfiard, Director of Primary School? in the Depart- 
ment of the Seine, the SaUes (TOrSile of this Department have been divided iuto two 
classes : the SaUes cTasile proper, or Asylums for the nurture of children, from 2 to 4 years 
of age, and the Froebel doss for children from 4 to 6 years of age. The Froebel class is 
preparatory for the Public Primary School. About 65 per cent, of all the children 
Detween the ages of 2 and 6, in Paris and the suburbs, are in the SaMes d'asiles and the 
Froebel classes. 



158 BERTHA VON MARENHOLTZ-BULOW. 

In Bavaria, Baden, and Wirtemburg, through her personal visits and 
correspondence, Froebel Unions of efficient women, and Model Kinder- 
gartens were established in 1857. The Munich Society was established in 
1868, and in 1873 it had seven Kindergartens with 2,890 children. 

In 1861 and the years immediately following we find her organizing in 
Berlin a "Union for Family and Popular Education," and superin- 
tending a course of practical instructions in kindergarten plays for nurses. 

In the pedagogical section of the Congress of Philosophers, called 
and sustained mainly by Professor Leonhardi of Prague, the Baroness 
took an active interest, and it was through her influence that Prof. Von 
Flchte of Tubingen expressed the views of the section in his report sub- 
mitted to the Congress at Frankfort, in 1869, in which Froebel's solution 
of the problem of the popular education demanded by the age, is ably set 
forth. During the session at Frankfort, she delivered, on special invita- 
tion, public lectures in exposition of Froebel's system, and took the 
initiatory steps for the establishment of the General Educational Union, 
which was organized at Dresden in 1871, by the election of Prof. Fichte 
as President. Among the members we notice the names of Dr. Barop 
of Keilhau, Dr. Wichard Lange, Dr. Langthal, State Councillor Heub- 
ner. Baron von Teubern, Dr. Hohlfeld, Prof. Leonhardi, Dir. Mar- 
quard, and many excellent teachers who are coming to the front in 
pedagogical work. To the periodical established by this union, and the 
Normal Class, the Baroness devotes much time, having since the opening 
of the latter assisted in the training of over 1,000 kindergartners. In the 
organ of the Union, Die Erziehung der Oegemcart, she has first published 
her educational views. We have enumerated in another place the various 
publications issued by the Baroness in elucidation of Froebel's system. 

In the winter of 1871, she visited Italy, delivered lectures in Florence, 
and assisted in conferences and by letters in the establishing of kinder- 
gartens in Venice, Rome, and Naples. The lectures delivered by her 
were republished by the United States Commissioner of Education in 1872. 

Out of her labors in Florence originated one feature of Madame Salis- 
Schwabe's great institution at Naples in the old Medical College buildings-, 
placed at her disposal by the Italian Government. 

This noble woman still lives, and denying her years the peaceful hours 
of rest, still works on for the furtherance of the same cause which has 
been so blest at her hands. May the evening of her busy and useful life 
be long cheered by the grateful voices of thousands of women whom she 
has inspired and trained to lives of beneficent activity, and of tens of thou- 
sands more to whom her works or teaching secured the priceless inheri- 
tance of a happy childhood, and brought light, sweetness, and strength to 
their widely separated homes. It is the privilege of only a few in any 
one or many generations, so to live ; and living, to see the work of their 
hands still progressing to large, and still larger results, in every civilized 
country. One who knew by experience something of such work says: 

"The good begun by yon shall onward flow 

In many a branching stream and wider grow; 

The seeds that in these few and fleeting hours, 

Your hands unsparing and unwearied sow, 

Shall deck your grave with amaranthine flowers. 

And yield you fruits divine in heaven's immortal bowers." 



FROEBELIAN LITERATUER. I59 

Publications by Bertha V. MarenholtzBulow. 

1. EiNE Frauenstimme aus dem Bade Liebenstein im Juli 1849 [A 
woman's voice from the Liebenstein Bath in July, 1849]. 

Contained in the pamphlet : " Einiges iiber die Nothwendigkeit und Wu-k- 
samkeit der Frob. Kindergarten. Stinimen aus dem Bade Liebenstein, 1849 
ira Juli " [Something upon the necessity and effect of the Froebelian liinder- 
gartens. Voices from the Liebenstein Bath in July, 1849]. 

Also in: " Rhcinische Blatter," 1849, pt. 2, p. 325—. 

2. Fk. Frobel und die Kindergarten. . . , [Fr. Froebel and the Kinder- 
gartens. Reply to an accusing article in No. 21 of the Hannov. Zeitung, 1852]. 

Contained in : " Zeitschrift ftir Frobels Bestrebungen, 1852, No. 5, p. 3, 3-[l81]. 

3. Wiliielm Middendorff. 

Contained in : " Rheinische Blatter," 1854, Sept. — Oct. No., p. 142-149. 

4. EiN zusAMMENHANGENDES Ganzes von Spielen und Beschaftigungen 
fiir die erste Kindheit von Fr. Frobel [A connected whole of pla^ys and occupa- 
tions for the earliest childhood, bv Fr. Froebel]. Dresden, Fischers Druckerei, 
1854. 12 p. 

Engl, transl. : " A connected series of playthings and occupations for early 
childhood by Fr. Frobel, Dresden, Fischers Printing Office, 1854." 

5. Die erste Erziehung durch die Mutter nach Fr. Frobels Grundsatzen 
[The first education by the mother, according to Fr. Froebel's principles]. 
Leipzig, Gust. Mayer, 1854. 32 p., with 2 lith. pi. 

6. AuFFORDERUNG an die Frauen zur Griindung von Erziehungsvereinen 
[Demand upon women for the establishment of educational unions]. 

Separate from Dr. Georgens and H. Klemm's " Illustrirten Monatsheften 
fiir Familienleben, weibliche Bildung und Humanitatsbestrebungen " [Illus- 
trated monthly for family life, culture of women, and strivings of humanity]. 
Dresden, Klemm, 1854, No. 6, p. 187-191. 

7. Woman's educational mission, being an explanation of Fr. Frobel's 
system of infant gardens. London, Darton, 1854. (Published with the Coun- 
tess Krockow. ) 

8. Der Kindergarten, des Kindes erste "Werkstatte [The Kindergarten, 
the child's first workshop]. 3d ed., Dresden, Kammerer, 1878. (68 1) p., with 3 
lithogr pi. 

Appeared first under the title : " Les jardins d'enfants " [The Kindergartens]. 
Paris, Borrani and Droz., 1855. 

The journal: " Le disciple de Jesus-Christ" [The disciple of Jesus Christ], 
publ. by Martin Pachoud, . . . contained this pamphlet in several numbers. 

The German translation ("by Isidore von Bulow) appeared first in Lauck- 
hard's pedagogical quarterly ' Reform," Leipzig, Weber, v. 2, No. 1, and 

As a separate, entitled : "Die Frobelschen Kindergarten [The Froebelian 
Kindergartens] . 

The 2d ed. appeared under the title : " Der Kindergarten, des Kindes erste 
Werkstatte [The liindergarten, the child's first workshop]. Dresden, Kubel, 
1873. 

Polish translation (by a young Pole, Xaveria Kuwiczinska) : Dresden, 1864. 

Publ. at Florence, in French, and in Italian, by a Union formed there for tho 
Froebelian cause. 

9. Nothwexdigb "Verbesserung der Kleinkinder-Bewahranstalten [Nec- 
essary improvement of the asylums for little children]. Berlin, Dunker, 1857. 

(Reprinto,d in the Rheinische Blatter, 1857, pt. 2, p. 69-85 ; Representatives.) 



IQQ FROEBELIAN LITEEATUUE. 

10. Les jardins d'enfants. Expose jnesente ... an Congres interna- 
tional de Bienfaisance de Frankfort sur Je Meiu [The Kindergartens. State- 
ment presented by Mme. the Baroness of Marenlioltz to the International 
Congress of Beneticence, of Frauiifort on the Main]. Bruxclles, 1858. 

Also in: "Congres int. de Bienf. de Frankfort s. 1. M. Session 1857. 
Frankfort s/M. et Bruxelles, 1858, v. 1, p. 295—, p. 307—. 

In 1858 she contributed to the: "Manuel pratique des jardins d'enfants" 
. . . [Practical manual of the Kindergartens of Fr. Froebel, for the use of 
instructresses and mothers ; composed upon the German documents by F. F. 
Jacobs, with an introduction by Madame the Baroness of Marenholtz]. 
Bruxelles, 1859. 

In 1861 she founded the periodical: "Die Erziehung der Gegenwart" [The 
education of the present], edited by Dr. Schmidt in Kothen, in which she pub- 
lished a series of articles, which were re-published in her work " Das Kind und 
sein Wesen" [The child and its nature]. Berlin, Habel, 1868. 

1 1. Die Arbeit und die neue Erziehung nach Frohels Methode [Work 
and the new education according to Froebel's method]. Berlin, Habel (Enslin), 
1866. More than 259 p. 

Same, 2d ed. Kassel und Gottingen, Wigand, 1875. [4] 329 p., 4.5 Mark. 
Russian transl. 

English transl. in America (by Mrs. Mann.) 
Italian transl. in Palermo. 

12. Das Kind und sein Wesen. . . . [The child and its nature. Contri- 
bution to the understanding of Froebel's doctrine of education]. 2d ed. Kassel, 
Wigand, 1878. 

(A part of the articles in this appeared in 1861 and 1862^in the "Erziehung 
der Gegenwart.") 

The first edition of this work was transl. by Prof. Sanzo del Rio into Spanish ; 
and by Matilda Kriege in New York into English : " The child, its nature and 
relations. A free rendering of the German of the Baroness Marenholtz Biilow. 
New York, 1872"; — also, from the 2d edition, into English, by Alice M- 
Christie: "Child and child-nature. Contributions to the understanding of 
Frobel's educational theories, by Baroness Marenholtz-Bulow." London, Sonnen- 
schein, 1879 ; — the same, republished by Dr. Barnard, in the American Journal 
of Education, for March, July, and September, 1880, and in Pamphlet of 128 
p.iges, Hartford, 1880, and in the Kindergarten and Child-Culture Papers, 1881. 

13. Beitrage zum Verstandnisse der Frobelschen Erziehungsideen [Con- 
tributions to the understanding of the Froebelian ideas of education]. 

Vol. 1. Reminiscences of Fr. Froebel. Appeared first in the " Erziehung der 
Gegenwart," 1874-76. In America this work was translated into English: 
" Reminiscences of Fr. Frobel by Bar. B. de Marenholtz-Biilow, translated by 
Mrs. Horace Mann. With a sketch of the life of Fr. Frobel by Emily Shirreff ." 
Boston, Lee & Shepard. 

Vol. 2. Kassel, Wigand, 1877. 

14. Die Erscheincngen der Zeit und die Aufgaben der Erziehung. . . . 
[The phenomena of the times and the task of education. An exhortation to 
carry out the solution of the educational tasks of the present]. In Kommission 
derkonigl. Hofbuchhandlung von BuBdach in Dresden, 1879. 

Appeared first in the "Erziehung der Gegenwart," 1878 and 1879. 



FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL VIEWS. 

BY BARONESS MARENHOLTZ-BULOW.* 



I. CHILD-NATURE. 



The child is born into the world ! He enters it struggling; a scream 
is his first utterance. Ilis destiny is labor ; he has to make himself 
master of the world by his own exertions in whatever sphere of society 
his cradle may lie. A thick veil hangs over the young being which, 
like a closely enveloped bud, does not betray the exact image of the 
flower it will one day expand into. 

Can even the mother divine what fate is in store for her newborn 
child ? She knows not whether there lies in her lap a future benefactor 
of mankind, or a miserable criminal. Is it in her power to bring about 
the one destiny — to avert the other? Who can doubt that she may do 
something towards both these ends? Imagine, for instance, an infant 
with the natural endowments of a Goethe, a Beethoven, a Raphael, or a 
Franklin, and let its cradle be placed in some haunt of misery and vice. 
A childhood without loving care, without guidance, passed in the midst 
of immoral surroundings; a youth lived among drunkards, thieves, and 
liars — how much of the original material will have been developed? — 
as good as none ! and the gifts of nature will probably become a per- 
ilous weapon in the hands of a scoundrel. 

Or suppose the same gifted child to be born in a palace, and brought 
up by weak, light-minded parents in extravagance and luxury, and under 
the pernicious system of intellectual forcing, but at the same time, in 
all practical senses, in utter idleness — is it likely that in such a case, the 
natural endowments will ripen to perfection ? Hardly 1 If a few sickly 
sprays shoot out and blossom, it is as much as can be hoped for. 

Now let us reverse the supposition, and imagine a child of quite 
ordinary faculties reared neither in want and vice, nor in luxury and 
superfluity, whose parents and whole surroundings fulfill all the condi- 
tions which a human being can require for its development — will a 
distinguished man or woman be the result in such a case — a great artist, 
or a splendid character, whose place will be lastingly marked out in 
human society? Certainly not! Great geniuses, great characters, 
bring their greatness with them into the world. Rose-trees cannot be 
grown from thistle-seeds. 



* " Child and Child-Nature." Contributions to the Understanding of Frobel's Edu- 
cational Theories, by the Baroness Marenholtz-Biilow. Translated from Revised 
Berlin edition (1878), by Alice M. Christie. London : W. Swan Sonneuschein, 15 
Paternoster Square, 1879. 

161 11 



162 CHILD-NATURE. 

Or let us imagine the most highly gifted of human beings brought 
up under all the best conceivable educational influeiaces, whether ac- 
cording to Frobel's principles or others — would such au one appear 
before us as a completely perfect man ? Certainly not ! If we pre- 
sumed to answer this question in the affirmative, we must be prepared 
to maintain as a general fact that human conditions are sufficient, in 
any direction whatever, to produce perfection. And this we cannot do. 
For we see all around us defects of birth, as well as defects of educa- 
tion and surroundings, and we cannot attempt to determine how much 
of the imperfection of human beings is to be attributed to natural 
qualifications and how much to outward influences — to the education 
■which is bestowed, as well as to that which goes on of itself. 

Each of these influences has its part in the development of the man 
or woman out of the child. But the more human knowledge embraces 
in its scope the knowledge of human nature, the more educational sys- 
tems are adapted to this knowledge, the nearer will they be brought to 
perfection. 

Human nature has not as yet attained to its full standard of devel- 
opment, nor does any one yet know to what height it is capable of 
rising even on earth. Once only did mankind behold its pei-fect pattern 
in the man Christ Jesus. But we know that man is of divine origin, 
and that his destiny is to become the image of God. Eternally pro- 
gressing development can alone solve the problem of his existence. 

Frobel aptly describes human nature when he says : " Man is at once 
the child of nature, the child of humanity, and the child of God;" 
in this threefold sense alone can he be rightly understood. Frobel 
himself has done little to develop this and many other of his profound 
thoughts on human nature, and there is, therefore, need of constant 
exposition to make them more thoroughly understood. By the com- 
prehension of this threefold character in human nature, Frobel to a 
certain extent neutralizes the discord between body and spirit, for he 
places man as a reconciler between God and Nature. 

With its first. breath the child comes undoubtedly into relation with 
these three powers : Nature, Humanity, and God. 

THE child's relation TO NATURE. 

(1.) As a child of nature, man is connected with all the elements of 
creation, even down to the inorganic ones, which can be detected as 
iron in the blood, as chalk in the bones, and so forth. As a product of 
nature, he is not only subject to her laws, he lives in her, and only exists 
through her, he comes out from her and goes back to her ! He is sur- 
rounded by her atmosphere, and his earthly life is an outcome of it. 
Soil and climate, food and clothing, with the modes of life arising 
therefrom, give their special stamp to races and peoples, of which the 
individual man is a member. There is not a single product of nature 
that does not pass into man, or at any rate stand in relation to him. 



''''! -NATURE. 163 

Everywhere there goes on a perpetual interchange of material between 
man and nature, nature and man ; and when a human being has fin- 
ished his course on earth, he bequeaths to the earth iiis body, which will 
rise from it again as plants, flowers, or fruits. 

And through nature, too, men are closely bound up in one another, 
each generation in itself, and all generations together, for, from the first 
' down to the last, the great world chemist has smelted and fused them 
with one another, and with the kingdoms of nature. 

In all these kingdoms there is but one and the same law which 
governs alike the heavenly bodies and the smallest stone, the lowest 
animal, and the noblest human being, for all have the same origin, and 
the same Creator, God. And it is because the Spirit of God lives in 
nature and in the human soul that man is able to understand nature. 
Only where there is mutual analogy, is mutual understanding possible. 
And this understanding, this finding out, of analogies must be arrived 
at, if man is to acquire a deeper knowledge of his own being. We have 
not yet got beyond the A B C of the great symbolisms of nature ; but 
science now-a-days takes possession with giant strides of one realm of 
nature after another. Let us only place the rising generation, from its 
cradle up, under the mighty influences of divine nature, so that her 
intuitive language may penetrate to our children's souls and awaken 
an echo in them, and mankind will soon be better able to solve the 
riddles which contain the key of life, the hieroglyphs of this mystic 
symbolism will soon be legible to all. 

RELATIONS TO HUMANITY. 

(2.) But as a child of humanity, the young citizen of the world, 
comes out from the circle of necessity to which all the domains of nat- 
ure belong, and enters the realm of freedom, of self-knowledge, and 
self-mastery. The stamp of natural organisms is simple and easily 
recognized ; the species is a sure index to the individual. 

In the human organism, inflividuality grows into personality, which 
once established can never more be lost, but expands and develops con- 
tinually in the chain of conscious existence, whose highest member 
leads up to the Godhead. But here, too, the species, the tribe, the na- 
tion, the generation, all combine to give the stamp to the individual. 

Who is there that would be able to unravel the many-threaded, 
thousand-fold entangled web of derivation ; to determine how much 
is inherited from the race, the nation, the family, and how much is 
peculiar to the individual himself? Do not numberless traits of char- 
acter live on from forefathers to descendants? No one can entirely 
separatehimself from the chain of which he is a link. None can repu- 
diate the heritage of his fathers, whether it descend to him in the 
features of his face, in his gestures, or in special qualities of the soul. 

The old saying, "the sins of the fathers are visited on the children 
to the fourth generation," is true for all times. But virtues perpetuate 



1 64 CHILD-NATURE. 

themselves in like manner, and it is within the free choice of every 
separate personality to diminish the sum of wickedness and to increase 
tliat of virtue. The moral progress of mankind depends on this, that 
each individual and each generation make such use of the talent 
received from its predecessor, that it shall yield manifold interest. 

Backslidings of individual human beings, as of individual nations, 
are unavoidable in the great school of experience in which Providence 
has placed mankind. But progress in the main, and on the whole, is 
going forward. To deny this, is as much as to deny the Providence 
which has implanted this incessant yearning after something better 
(even under earthly conditions) in the human breast, and has based on 
this yearning the whole moral and mental development of man. With- 
out the assumption of the possibility of perfection, for the individual 
as well as the race, human education would be without end or aim. 

To what extent man is the offspring of humanity is seen in a thou- 
sand different ways. A child may have been transplanted to a foreign 
land and into the midst of foreign surroundings immediately after its 
birth, and it will nevertheless learn its mother tongue with greater 
facility than any other. There are examples to show that children 
who had lost their parents in strange countries, at the tenderest age, 
and had never heard a syllable of their mother tongue, learnt it with 
incredible rapidity at the first opportunity. So, too, it is affirmed that 
it is not only owing to the imitative faculty that children learn their 
parents' trades so easily. The practice of the parents, through which 
special organs are developed, stands the children in good stead. And 
who has not caught himself in habits which are hereditary in his 
family ? 

Humanity is a wTioIe, and is destined to develop and establish itself 
more and more as an organism through the conscious hanging together 
of its members, through the realization (striven after by all religions) 
of the brotherhood of men. Hence the individual can only be under- 
stood when considered as part of the race, while it is only through 
individuals that the race can receive the full impress of all its manifold 
features. The paradox, " the more individual, so much the more uni- 
versal ; and the more universal, so much the more individual," is only 
an apparent contradiction. The more distinctly and completely the 
personal character of the individual pronounces itself, the nearer will it 
approach the universal character of mankind. Harmony in music is 
all the more perfect when each separate instrument gives out its par- 
ticular note cleai'ly and sharply. 

Profound obscurity still covers the Why of the great mystery of unity 
in variety, and of the linking together of generations in the past, the 
present, and the future. But with the advance of all other sciences that 
of humanity is advancing also. The time will come when man shall 
have arrived at that, which by the wise of all ages has been recognized 
as the keystone of wisdom, viz., " to know oneself." 



CHILD-NATURE. 165 

All knowledge must ascend from the easier to the more difficult ; and 
so the road to the knowledge of man must lead first through that of 
the organisms of nature, which is subordinate to man. Man must first 
behold himself in the looking-glass of nature, before he can rightly use 
that glass which the history of mankind holds up to him. 

Only in the mirror of his own race, in the history of humanity, can 
individual man see what his true nature is — though hitherto it may be 
only in a fragmentary manner. However much epochs and nations 
may differ from one another, and however infinite in its variety may 
be the conformation of separate individuals — each one sees, nevertheless, 
the universal features of his broad human nature beaming at him from 
the portraits of history. What is it that makes the dramas of Shaks- 
peare immortal, but the grandly universal traits of human nature which 
stand out with the strongest individuality in all his characters ? These 
universal features remain the same, and are comprehensible, in all ages 
and under all forms. 

Mankind from its birth, like individual man, has passed through, and 
is still passing thi'ough, the different stages of childhood, youth, man- 
hood, and old age. And conversely we see in the development of the 
individual the universal features of the progress of mankind. 

Frobel has studied these features with deeper insight, and has found 
the method of drawing them out in the various stages of childish devel- 
opment, through sensation, will, and action. 

In the instinctive utterances of infant nature, in so far as its freedom 
is not curtailed by the training universally in vogue, are seen traces of 
the groove in which mankind has gone forward in its march from the 
beginnings of civilization to the heights reached at the present day. 
The instinct of animals has been strong enough from the very beginning 
to procure them the necessaries of their existence. The various races 
of animals have not changed their functions within our epochs. The 
bee builds its cell, the swallow her nest, the fox his hole, exactly as they 
did formerly. Man alone has been compelled to open out a way for 
himself, to mount upwards by his own labor and exertions, by the 
mighty power of his inventive spirit, and through thousands of errors 
and by-ways, from the first rude conditions of a wild life of nature to 
the heights of civilization. The history of human culture shows this. 

But whatsoever the mind of man may have produced, from the most 
primitive work-tools carved out of stones and roots, to the wonderful 
machinery of modern times ; from the fijrst rude outlines, copied from 
the shadows of objects, to the wonders of sculpture and painfcing ; from 
the imitated tones of birds and insects and all the different sounds of 
nature, to the symphonies of Beethoven ; from the rude- knowledge of 
the relations of space and size to the measurement of the heavens ; in 
all that the human mind has accomplished in the way of knowledge, it 
is nature that has given the direction-line and the law. For man could 
only create after the patterns of the Creator himself, and it is only in 



166 



CHILD-NATUitE. 



a later stage of development that the genius of mankind has been capa- 
ble of giving a divine stamp to these first rude constructions, and of 
elevating them into works of art. These early patterns were to man at 
the same time symbols of truth ; visible signs of the invisible — until he 
became capable of immediate apprehension through the Word, By 
gentle, gradual steps, through the rudest and the simplest modes of 
sensual perception to the manifestation of divine beauty in Art, and of 
divine truth in the Word, has God led his human children. 

In the play of children of all times we see the nature of mankind 
expressed. Its past and future life passes through the soul of the child 
as a dim recollection and a dim foreboding, and grojiing and fumbling 
it seeks to find the leading-string, both outward and inward, which 
shall guide it through all labyrinths to the fulfilment of its tasks. 

As birds build nests, so children in their play build houses, or dig 
holes. As chickens scratch up the earth, so, too, do little children's 
hands, until in their little gardens they have learnt in play how to till 
the soil, and sow and reap. Any chance-found material will serve them 
for plastic modeling, be it only moist sand. There is no art which is 
not attempted by children, whether it be pictures in chalk or pencil, or 
drawn in the sand ; or that the first stammering tones of the newborn 
infant move rhythmically ; or the crowing of the cock, the mooing of 
the cow, the bark of the dog, and any other animal voices, be imitated 
by children, until true musical sounds issue from their little throats ; 
these are the first beginnings which lead up to art. And with the rudi- 
ments of industry and art, the first germs of science show themselves 
also in the desire to know. With its oft-repeated : why, how, wherefore ? 
the young mind strives to get to the bottom of things, to the funda- 
mental truth, to their source in God. 

It is a fundamental necessity that the development of the individual 
should go through the same phases as that of the race, for both have 
the same end before them. Happiness — or according to Frobel — " Joy, 
Peace, Freedom," are sought by the individual, are sought by mankind. 
To both these can only come through the fulfillment of their destination, 
which is the full development of the entire human nature. A rightly 
directed education is the chief means of reaching this end, but a means 
which is only possible through a right understanding of man and nat- 
ure. Through this understanding alone can the secret of human exist- 
ence be discovered. 

• THE CHILD OF GOD. 

(3.) Every human being in his spiritual origin belongs to God. 

The child of God exists only as a feeble spark in the human being at 
his first entrance into the world ; to fan this spark into a flame is the ob- 
ject of his earthly existence. At the beginning of existence the cJdld of 
nature rules in a man as instinctive life, as an impulse which awakens 
the will — at first only as an ungoverned force of nature. Self-preserva- 



CHILD-NATURE. 167 

tion is almost exclusively the unconscious object of all childish utter- 
ances. And we have no right to blame children for this so-called egoism ; 
had not an all-wise providence implanted this impulse so strongly in the 
human breast, how could weak, helpless beings preserve their existence 
in the midst of the countless perils of life? It is, however, the business 
of education to moderate this instinct of self-preservation, and by the 
exercise of the capacity for loving, to lead the child out of the narrow 
range of personal life into that of the child of humanity, i. e., the social 
being who constitutes a member of human society. In this sphere 
feeling and reason bear rule, and by these the will is guided and pointed 
to a higher aim than mere personal well-being. 

Self-reliance, independence, freedom, are the highest stamps of the 
child of humanity as an individual. How far would the development of 
the world have advanced were it not for the inborn, unextinguishable 
craving which is driving and spurring men on to create for themselves 
an independent existence, a respected position in society ? Almost all 
progress is the result of it. Each one wishes to assert himself, to be 
himself the center of a little world of his own activity ; and this desire 
drives him to a thousand exertions, to countless inventions, to continu- 
ous change of position, and consequently of his whole circumstances. 

So long, however, as man considers only himself — or even the wider 
self of his family — so long the child of God still slumbers in him. Then 
only is the latter awake and living, when the love which has hitherto 
embraced only himself, and the narrow circle of those living with him, 
drives him forth into the larger community of the nation and the race ; 
when this love becomes strong enough to move him, regardless of his 
own personality, yea, more, at the sacrifice of earthly personality to de- 
vote himself to the good of the whole. He that enters the service of 
mankind has entered the service of God. The saying : " He that lov- 
eth not his brethren, how can he love God ? " is the kernel of all religion. 
Through the love of those outside us we arrive at the love of God, in 
that higher community which exists outside the visible world. 

By every ideal upsoaring we overstep the limits of this earthly visi- 
ble life, and penetrate into a higher world where the mortal becomes 
immortal. If everywhere throughout the universe there is continuous 
unbroken connection, it can only be an apparent gap which is caused 
by earthly death. The image of God, to which man is called to raise 
himself, cannot be perfected in the narrow limits of earthly existence ; 
in his divine nature man is a citizen of the great All, which prevails by 
gradual advances, thereby conquering time and space. 

Who is there that either would or could deny that man bears in him- 
self the marks that he is destined to communion with God, and, finally, 
to union with him ? Has there ever been a human being worthy of 
the name, who has passed through the whole course of his earthly 
life without experiencing a craving after something higher ? It may 
have been but one single moment of strong emotion, whether of joy or 



1G8 CHILD-NATURE, 

of sorrow, but that moment has been enough to point to something be- 
yond the confines of this existence. Is there any work of man, even 
the highest, any deed, even the greatest, which does not presuppose 
something higher than itself, more perfect? Nowhere in human exist- 
ence is full satisfaction to be found, everywhere forebodings, yearnings, 
hopings, drive us outside of ourselves — on to the Ideal of Humanity — 
as it was once presented to us in Him who gave His life for His breth- 
ren — on to the fountain of all fullness and perfection— to God Himself ! 

Such is the ddUl of God who enters into a higher liberty because he 
has become capable of a higher love. Only through love is true liberty 
possible ; for it is only love that can conquer whatever is opposed to 
liberty ; and only in liberty is love possible, for only he who possesses 
himself in perfect liberty is free to give himself up in love. 

All great benefactors of mankind, all its true heroes, martyrs, and 
saints, all really great artists and great discoverers of truth and science 
— as also all childlike souls who have lived out their lives in simplicity 
and piety — were children of God. In them the divine spark had kin- 
dled into a holy fire of inspiration, purifying and enlightening the soul, 
and enabling the divine mind to shine through the human. In them 
the soul had burst the narrow bounds of personality and expanded itself 
on mankind, in anticipation of that time when all human beings, in 
full possession of their perfected individuality, will together realize the 
great being of humanity ; i. e., when all the endless variety of human 
life shall be swallowed up in unity, and the countless different notes of 
a great harmony of brotherly love be struck in concord. Then the 
child of God will have triumphed in humanity, then good will have 
conquered evil, then the Apotheosis of this earthly globe and its inhab- 
itants will be consummated ! 

We may lower or raise the standard of perfection attainable on earth 
as much as we will — it matters little. Once let us accept the law of 
progress as an eternal law, and it must lead us on to ever higher ends. 
There are only two alternatives ; either this earth is a treadmill, on 
which men go round and round without ever getting further ; or else 
mankind is destined to attain even on earth to a God-decreed height of 
perfection which will be carried on further and further in the great 
hierarchy of the universe. 

If all without exception believed in this high destiny, if each one of 
us was convinced that he was called to work according to God's will 
toward the fulfillment of this aim, how much more quickly would it be 
reached ? How much more easily would want and sorrow be endured 
if we kept steadily in view the great end, to bring us nearer which every 
experience of humanity must be gone through, every pain suffered and 
its cause mastered ? But each painful sufferer and faithful worker will 
once have his share in the glory of fulfillment. This is the true belief, 
belief in the glorification of God in humanity ; this is the belief which 
all religions must presuppose, this is the kernel of Christianity ; and one 



CHILD-NATURE. 169 

great reason why religion has so little hold on the world now-a-days is, 
that it mostly leaves this belief out of account. So long as it is con- 
sidered mere fanaticism, or Utopian expectation, to believe in this 
Apotheosis of humanity, so long will it remain unrealized. To science 
is committed the great task of demonstrating how all that exists, not 
only in our planet but in all the heavenly bodies, is bound together in 
one continuous chain. When this is done, the higher relations of things 
beyond the earth will be understood of themselves, and the belief in 
their perfect spiritual development will itself have become science. 

But this triumph of the child of God will not be brought about by 
the suppression and annihilation of the child of nature^ and the child of 
humanily. The full harmony of human nature can only be produced 
when its due weight is given to each side, and the higher nature^raws 
the others up to equal perfection with its own. 

Education will only then fulfill its task when it deals with human 
nature in its threefold aspect, and gives to each equal consideration. 
Hitherto, this has not been possible, both because child-nature was 
little understood before the present time, and because the means were 
wanting to respond from the very beginning to the necessities of the 
infant mind. It was Frobel who first found the key to the nature of 
children, who learnt to understand their dumb natural language, who 
discovered a way of supplying them with their first mental nourish- 
ment, and of treating the chill of humanity, from its first entrance into 
the world, as a being destined to become reasonable. 

Woman — the Educator of Mankind. 

Bat where shall we find mothers fit to receive the educational legacy 
of genius bequeathed to our age, and to apply it in the right way? We 
have but to look ai'ound in all classes of society to see how few are the 
women really fit to become mothers and bringers-up of children. And 
even the best amongst them are deficient in the necessary knowledge 
and means. Frobel has laid the basis of a true science for mothers, 
and we hope that many perversities of our educational systems may be 
struck at their roots, and misery of every description thus warded off. 

With the elevation of child-nature, the elevation of woman and her 
veritable emancipation are closely bound up. The science of the mother 
initiates her inevitably into a higher branch of knowledge, whereby not 
mere dry intellectual power, but true sensibility and high spiritual 
clearsightedness are developed in her. With the knowledge that a di- 
vine spark slumbers in the little being on her lap, there must kindle in 
her a holy zeal and desire to fan this spark into a flame, and to educate 
for humanity a worthy citizen. With this vocation of educator of man- 
kind is bound up everything needful to place woman in possession of 
the full rights of a worthy humanity. 



170 FKOEBEL'S EDUCATIONAI. VIEWS. 



II. THE FIRST DEVELOPMENTS OF THE CHILD. 

" Sicli selbst und ilire Welt zu schatfen, welche Gott erschaffen, ist die Aufgabe 
der Menschheit, wie des Einzelnen." 

" To fasliion himself, to fashion the -world, which God created, is the task of hu- 
manity, as well as of the individual." 

Not Ficibel alone, others too before him, and at the same time, have 
given expression to the thought that, as the universal development of 
the human individual can only be carried on in relation to his race, so 
the first sure standard for his management and education must be ob- 
tained through observation of the development of collective humanity. 
Fiiibel grounded his Kindergarten system to a great extent on this 
principle, without, however, carrying its application to the individual; 
a few explanations, therefore, by which this analogy may be more 
closely established, and Frobel's system of development exhibited in its 
right light, will not be out of place here. 

The first question that proposes itself is : " What are the principal 
utterances of the infant ? " those, that is, which are more or less com- 
mon to all children alike, and in which we can point to the beginnings 
of human efforts after culture. 

PHYSICAL MOVEMENT. 

When a child is born into the world, its first utterances are in the 
form of movements — outward movements of his arms and legs, and 
inner movements in the shape of screams. All development must go 
on througii movement. Before a human being can in any degree begin 
to take possession of himself aiid of the outward world, his physical 
powers and organs must be to some extent unfolded ; and thence it is 
that in the early years of life physical development takes the lead. The 
child of but a few months old, lying in its cradle, plays with its limbs, 
pulls about its feet and fingers, strikes out its arms and legs, and thus 
makes its first acquaintance with its outward form, which in this way 
only can be impressed on its mind. As soon as the child can walk, 
its greatest need again is movement. To run hither and thither, to 
traverse tlie same ground in a dozen different cross and roundabout 
ways; to touch, handle, and examine everything with the ever restless 
hands, all this is common to every healthy child ; and the greater its 
strength the greater its need for bodily exertion, which vents itself in 
running, jumping, climbing, wrestling, throwing, and lifting ; and in 
the case of boys especially, urges on to a variety of games which de- 
velop strength and skill. No such object, however, is present to the 
child's consciousness, who is simply driven by his impulses, the satisfac- 
tion of which causes him amusement and joy. Whatever alfords 
pleasure to children in general, and in all times, conduces always to 
their development in some way or other. 



THE FIEST DEVELOPMENTS OF THE CHILD, 171 

To forward physical development is thus the principal end of the 
child's activity. And do we not see a like process going on amongst 
savage uncultivated races; corporal exercises, and exertions, the object 
of which is generally to supply their needs, form the chief scope of 
their actions I The commencement of history with the heroic age ex- 
hibits in like manner bodily strength and skill as the highest aim of 
action, only here we have in addition the goal of heroic deeds, which 
were not merely concerned with material, egoistic needs, but also, and 
chiefly, with beloved human beings, and before all with the home and 
family. The putting forth of strength, the overcoming of obstacles or 
enemies, are always the highest pleasure of youth and early manhood. 
And even in middle age we still see the tournament, the duel, and the 
chase replacing to some measure as sport, the business of warfare. 
Nothing shows more clearly that the development of the physical powers 
constituted the highest happiness of mankind in its infancy, than the 
idea of a future life contained in Northern mythology, viz., that the 
dead would divide their existence in Walhalla between fighting and 
banqueting, and that the wounds received in battle would heal up at 
once, and the slain shortly after be drinking cheerily at the feast. 

EXERCISES OF THE LIMBS. 

The members and organs of the body must have been developed up 
to a certain pitch, before they can serve as fit instruments for the mind. 
We see plainly that the wise. direction of Providence has so ordered 
things, that every human being is attracted towards the kind of action 
necessary for his special development. The child is driven by an in- 
ward impulse, so to use his members and senses in his play, that these 
are developed and formed, just as the grown man in a primitive state is 
compelled to supply his own bodily wants in order that his bodily 
powers may be cultivated and made fit for a higher kind of activity. 
But every human being must take care that he does not remain at the 
mercy of these impulses, or he will degenerate, be lead on to that which 
we call evil, and lose sight of the direction which would have conducted 
him to the destined end of his development. A right education con- 
sists in so strengthening and encouraging all the natural dispositions 
of a child that they may conduce to the end which nature has set be- 
fore them. Our modern age, which makes so much less demand for 
expenditure of corporal strength, furnishes so much less opportunity 
for battling with outward material obstacles, imitates the Greeks, 
though by no means universally enough, in using gymnastics as a 
means of physical education for its youth, but there is no similar pro- 
vision, or as good as none, for the first years of childhood, except where 
Frobel's Kindergarten system is in vogue. Hence the first stage in the 
process of infant development is called " Exerci^^es of the Limbs." 

After the first development of rude strength, that of skill in handling 
stands out as the chief requisite at the commencement of human cul- 



172 THE FIRST DEVELOPMENTS OF THE CHILD. 

ture. Next to the need for movement, there is none so great in the 
early years of childhood as that of using the hands. The sense of touch 
is next to that of taste (which is itself a kind of touching with the 
tongue), the dominant one in the first stage of sensual growth. 

SENSE OF TOUCH — USE OF HAND. 

At the beginning of life there is very little distinction between the 
different senses ; they are all more or less fused together. The feeble 
capacity for work which any single sense possesses, necessitates the co- 
operation of all, when one is called upon to act. It is well known that 
children must always touch everything ; and not children only ; all 
rough, uncultivated grown people are not satisfied with seeing an object, 
they must also bring their sense of «touch in various ways to their as- 
Bistance, in order to understand exactly the nature of the object. 

In order that this most necessary member may be prepared for future 
■work, nature encourages the child to use its hands incessantly in its 
play. Nothing is more contrary to nature than to forbid a young child 
the use of its hands, as is so often done in infant institutions. In 
order that they may keep their attention steadily fixed on the subject 
of instruction, generally premature and quite out of proportion to the 
children's stage of development, they are condemned to keep their 
hands folded, or crossed behind their backs. Through this indication 
of nature, Frobel has discovered the right method of riveting a child's 
attention, viz , connecting all the instruction imparted to it with the use 
of the hands. The hand is the natural scepter which raises man to the 
position of sovereign of the earth. "With his hand man has fashioned 
for hiiHself all his weapons of self-defense, whereas animals are pro- 
vided with them by nature ; with his hand he has made all the imple- 
ments needful for mastering the forces and materials of nature, and for 
procuring the necessaries and ornaments of his life. Without the cul- 
tivation of the hand, industry and art would be impossibilities. But 
the marvelous organism of this member would not alone have been 
sufficient to produce the wonders of industi-ial art ; for this the guiding 
co-operation of the mind was necessary. The activity of human beings 
differs in this from that of animals, that it is work in the full sense of 
the w'ord, that the fingers are moved by the mind, and are obliged to 
carry out its plans and ideas. Therefore work is not a curse, but the 
highest blessing of mankind, and that which confers on it its nobility. 

INSTINCT OF CONSTRUCTION. 

The play of children is for them, at the same time, work, for it serves 
to develop their members, senses, and organs. After the first unregu- 
lated feeling and grasping of their little hands, their favorite occupa- 
tion is to dabble in some soft mess — earth, sand, or what not — and to 
try their skill at shaping and producing. Modeling is one of the first 
necessities of child-nature. But even this instinct, if left to itself, will 
lead to no end : education must supply the material and guidance 



THE FIRST DEVELOPMENTS OF THE CHILD, 173 

necessary for its development, must convert the aimless touching and 
fumbling into systematic construction, and direct the mere instinct into 
a channel of useful activity, all of which is done in the Kindergarten. 

The first and easiest kind of construction, after the forms in clay and 
sand, is building. After the child has grubbed itself holes in sandhills, 
it-goes a step further and builds houses, or whatever else its fancy may 
be able to invent in the way of architecture — and connected with this 
building are all manner of efforts towards the creation of a diminutive 
industry. The never-lessening fascination for all children of the ad- 
ventures of Robinson Crusoe is chiefly due to the depiction of the 
strivings after culture of a solitary individual, in which children see 
their own strivings reflected as in a mirror. 

One of the first ways in which human skill showed itself was un- 
doubtedly in the erection of dwelling-places that would afford sufficient 
protection when natural holes in rocks or under the earth, or mud-huts 
in woods, were no longer enough. But when, through the improvement 
of the tools employed, their work progresses from, its first rough out- 
lines, and as the combinations of which the mind is capable multiply, 
and form perfects itself, there awakes in the child (as formerly in our 
ancestors) a feeling for the beautiful. This feeling is no doubt in part 
awakened even earlier by the influence which the forms and colors of 
natural objects exercise even on the least-formed character. Every- 
thing glittering, bright, or gaudy, excites pleasure in the child as in the 
savage ; and in order to produce itself pleasure of this sort the child, 
in its own handiwork, feels more and more after the laws of rhythm 
and harmony, which, long before it can apprehend, it dimly and un- 
consciously forebodes. Observation of nature furnishes the patterns 
which the awakened creative spirit will idealize, and Art is born in the 
human soul, whether its expression be through form, color, or sound. 

But it is not only shaping and modeling that childish hands practice 
instinctively — drawing and painting are also attempted by them. As 
Frobel says, the child first perceives the linear — the outlines of objects. 
Whoever observes the actions of children will see how they almost in- 
variably feel all round objects with their fingers — take in, so to say, by 
touch, the contours of tables, chairs, and other articles of furniture, 
sketch the outline of their own hands and fingers in pencil, and so 
forth. The unpracticed eye of a child will at first take in only the 
principal lines of objects, and of these first the straight ones, before it 
can master curves, surfaces, and filling in. 

"We notice the same characteristics in the people who first practiced 
the science of architecture. Their drawings consist of outlines — linear 
representations — in straight strokes, without curves or perspective, as 
in the first attempts of children. 

The awakening of the sense of sound can perhaps be traced back to 
the earliest moments of a child's life, for even before it can speak it 
stammers out rhythmic tones. It is this instinctive need of rhythm in 



174 THE FIRST DEVELOPMENTS OF THE CHILD. 

cliildren which calls forth from mothers and nurses their cradle-songs, 
and causes the rhythmic rocking and lulling of infants in their cradles 
and in the arms. 

SENSE OF SOUND — EYHTHM. 

Attention to the differences of sound is one of the first awakenings 
of children, and early instruction in song avowedly one of the most 
effectual means of education. Savages, like children, have the keenest 
desire for song and dance — i. e., for rhythmic sound and movement. 
Rhythm is one of the great fundamental principles of all that is ex- 
pressed in the motion of the spheres, the flight of birds, the course of 
the deer, in the excitement of the dance, and the whole wide harmony 
of creation and of human genius. The civilization of mankind, as of 
individual man, without the cultivation of the beautiful, is unthinkable 
—and music is before all other arts the awakening of the heart. 

Before, however, the child has arrived at the production of his first 
little works of art, we may have noticed him grubbing in the earth, or 
transfixed in admiration of some animal or flower : nature has already 
worked upon him iu various ways. It is not only to the fresh living air 
that children of the tenderest years stretch out their hands so joyfully, 
when the mother or the nurse produces hat and cloak to take them out 
of doors. The forms and immediate impressions of surrounding 
nature already afford the infant being pleasure and delight. 

GARDENING. 

When free use of the limbs has been gained, all children who are not 
prevented from so doing will be seen grubbing in the garden soil, 
throwing up mounds, and little by little making themselves small gar- 
dens of their own. At first the little spade, which accompanies the 
child out of doors, is only used for heaping up sand and stones, as an 
exercise of strength without aim. As soon, however, as any power of 
observation has begun to supplement the merely instinctive movements, 
there is awakened an impulse to till the ground and to make use of 
the productive force of nature ; thus the child in its play, and thus man 
in the earliest stages of civilization, seeks to obtain better and more 
plentiful nourishment. Even though the instinct which moves the 
child to enclose its little garden with sticks be an undefined one, it is 
nevertheless that out of which the science of agriculture has arisen — 
the instinct, or need of possession. 

Without possession, without ownership, the individuality of man 
would never have been fully stamped. Ownership widens personality 
by giving it power to work, means to carry out its will, and to satisfy 
the feeling of fellow-love by sharing its goods with others. 

Were it not for the impulse which led him to agriculture, man would 
never have forsaken his nomadic life, would never have founded towns 
and communities, would never have carried development as far as the 
nation, and never have experienced the love of country. 



THE FIRST DEVELOPMENTS OF THE CHILD. 17S 

It may seem to many ridiculous to pretend to see in the first little 
territorial possession of the child the starting-point of the love of one's 
country, and yet it is an undeniable truth that all and everything which 
is of importance in human life, be it little or great, has had its begin- 
ning in unnoticed utterances which have been the germs of future de- 
,velopments. The largest tree may have sprung from the least percep- 
tible seed, and the greatest human action slumbers in the first sensations 
of the infant soul. Is not the love of one's own hearth the seed of the 
love of one's country? 

But if bodily wants have been the first spurs to all human culture, it 
is also unmistakably noticeable through the course of history, that by 
the side of every material need there is also a spiritual claim which 
makes itself felt. The tending and nurturing of that which serves 
firstly to satisfy selfish requirements, must at the same time awaken 
love. For whatever man carefully tends, the object or the being to 
whom he devotes his care, for whom he works, he also learns to love. 
That child would be a degenerate one that did not bestow its loving 
care on some objects or beings, were it at first only its playthings. 
With what tenderness do girls love their dolls, boys their toy-horses 1 
but from these inanimate things — which are only alive in childish 
fancy — their affections are soon transferred to the animals of the house, 
and the flowers of the garden. To a child who has never called a piece 
of ground its own, has never tilled it in the sweat of its brow, has 
never expended its fostering love on plants and animals, there will al- 
ways be a gap in the development of the soul, and it will be difficult 
for that child to attain the capacity for human nurture in a compre- 
hensive sense. All tending and fostering require self-mastery and self- 
denial, and these are only learnt by gradual exercise, beginning with 
the little and mounting up to the great. Out of the soil which he tilled 
with labor and care, there accrued to man his first rights over the planet 
inhabited by him, and the first page of his later law-book contains the 
principle : " Duties and rights should correspond to one another." 

CURIOSITY TO KNOW. 

Not till the child has to a certain extent mastered the use of its limbs 
and senses, and its spontaneity and faculties of observation have been 
awakened, enabling it to make all manner of little experiments, not till 
then does the desire for knowledge (generally called curiosity) assert 
itself. True, this desife lies already at the bottom of the fii'st groping 
and feeling of the hands, but it only then awakens with anythintr like 
distinctness, when the child begins to search into the causes of things 
and appearances with its thousand times repeated, " Why, whence, and 
wherefore." It must first have taken in'from the outward world a se- 
ries of impressions, images, and ideas, before thoughts will germinate 
in its mind. In order to knoiv, the child makes experiments ; it knocks 
different objects together, or throws them on the ground, to test the 



176 THE FIRST DEVELOPMENTS OF THE CHILD. 

solidity of their material ; it finds out their taste with its tongue ; tears 
or breaks them up to see what they are like inside, and by hundreds of 
like experiments searches out the nature and use of things. 

COMPARISON. 

To observation and investigation follows the comparison of one thing 
with another, and by comparison a perception of size, form, color, 
number, etc., is arrived at. What child is there that does not measure 
the length and breadth of different articles, that does not ask : " which 
of them is the largest ? " What child does not delight in counting the 
objects with which it is occupied? in asking their names and uses? 
Unfortunately the answers given to a child's eager inquiries are too 
often only empty words little calculated to satisfy them. It is not 
words alone, but above all demonstrations, which can furnish answers 
adapted to a child's understanding ; instruction in observation must 
begin with its earliest games, and not only at school. How brightly a 
child's eyes will sparkle at every fresh discovery, be it only a shining 
stone or a new wild-flower that it has found ; its joy over every fresh 
addition to its store of knowledge, to its treasure-house of ideas, is often, 
though it may express itself differently, no less than that of the wise 
man of antiquity, who, with the words, " I have discovered it," fell 
senseless to the ground. Just as children, when the desire for knowl- 
edge first wakens in them, begin by occupying themselves with the re- 
lations of space, with size and number, so did the learning of mankind 
begin with the elements of mathematics. The sole book which they 
could interrogate at the beginning of their development, was nature ; 
the observation and imitation of nature led from invention to invention, 
each of which increased the sum of knowledge, and widened the men- 
tal horizon. With a knowledge of nature, — however superficial it may 
h ive been, and based merely on appearances — did the learning of man- 
kind begin, and the learning of children must begin in like manner. 
]t was inevitable that the first deductions from this experimental 
knowledge should lead to mathematical conclusions, should consist in 
the measurement of compared objects. Not till things had been classi- 
fied according to their size and number, could they present themselves 
clearly to the understanding. 

As the child carries on its first geographical observations by the ex- 
ploration of the garden and the nearest environs of its dwelling-jilace, 
so the geographical knowledge of infant mankind began with the in- 
vestigation of the neighboring tracts of land, their soil, their products, 
their climates, etc. With the history of the family, the patriarchs, be- 
gan the history of the world. What do children love more to hear than 
the stories of family adventures, what their parents and grand-parents 
did, all that happened in their childhood, how they lived " when they 
were little ? " It is one of the first thoughts that occurs to a child, 
whether others were like what he himself is, whether they, too, were 



THE FIEST DEVELOPMENTS OF THE CHILD. 177 

once little. It was possibly this thought which once ino'v%d a child to 
ask the question, "if God had once been a little boy?" Children only 
understand what they can refer back to themselves, for they can only 
start from themselves. 

SOCIAL IMPULSE. 

But all these degrees of development, which we have pointed out, 
could only be reached by mankind (and the same applies to the child) 
in connection with his fellow-men, through the bond of society. The 
instinct of fellowship distinguishes even the higher races of animals 
from the lower, and is the deepest and most universal instinct of hu- 
man nature, the source and the means of all his culture and civiliza- 
tion. Only by means of association can man conquer time and space, 
subdue to his own uses the forces of nature, and make himself more 
and more the ruler of the earth, which he shall, in time, permeate and 
dominate even as God permeates and dominates the universe. 

The social impulse shows itself as early as the first months of a 
child's existence. No child likes to be alone ; it screams in its cradle 
if it thinks no human being is near it, and is quieted by the least word 
of kindly speech. But it is not merely the society of human beings im 
general that it wants — it needs especially that of its like, of children 
who are at the same stage of development, that is to say, of children of 
its own age. A child that has spent its childhood with grown-up people- 
only will never possess the freshness and youthful joyousness which are- 
awakened by life in a community ; and premature seriousness, if aot 
melancholy, will stamp its young features. What happy smiles, what 
beaming eyes, does one not see in even the youngest children, when 
they catch sight of other qhildren as young as themselves. The play 
of children with each other forms the first basis of all, and more espe-- 
cially of their moral cultivation. Without the love of his kind, without 
all the manifold relations of man to man, all morality, all culture,, 
would inevitably collapse ; in the instinct of fellowship lies the origin 
of state, of church, and of all that makes human life what it is. 

RELIGIOUS INSTINCT. 

According to Friibel the first religious instincts of children show 
themselves in their eagerness to join all gatherings of grown-up people ; 
this Frobel attributes to an undefined feeling that there is a common 
striving, a common idea uniting all the different individuals and causing 
them to assemble together. Thus, in the streets, or anywhere else, 
children will be seen flocking to any spot where several people are 
gathered together ; nothing delights children more than to be allowed 
to join in gatherings of grown-up people, however much constraint be 
enforced upon them. The pleasure of the first visit to church has more 
to do with the delight in a concourse of many people than with the un- 
derstanding of what is going on, or the participation in the spirit of the 
devotions, which the child is quite incapable of entering into. No 

12 



178 THE FIEST DEVELOPMENTS OF THE CHILD. 

doubt this is only the first unconscious aspiration penetrating the 
child's soul, and with it is bound up at the same time the love of man- 
kind, which always precedes the love of God. It is only the love of its 
mother, of its parents, of those nearest to it, which can lead the young 
soul to God ; out of this feeling is born the first spark of religious as- 
piration. As every sensation, and all other knowledge rests immediately 
on instinct, so, too, does religious knowledge. Frobel's statement that 
by rejpeatedly observing how children, scarcely a year old, when being 
amused with a ball fastened to a string, will quickly take their eyes off 
the revolving ball and follow the string till they come to the hand which 
is turning it, he became convinced that even a child's instinct will 
drive it from the contemplation of the appearance of things to the in- 
vestigation of their cause, may be little instructive to those who do not 
concede to childish utterances a psychological basis. And yet no 
thinker will deny that all the conscious utterances of humanity have risen 
out of unconscious ones. But in this concession there is, to a certain ex- 
tent, an acknowledgment of Frobel's idea, that every conception of the 
mature mind has its root-point in an instinctive idea of the child's 
mind, which, being awakened by outv/ard phenomena, shows itself first 
as a blind impulse ; and that, therefore, all instruction must start with 
the concrete and mount up to abstract thought. Frbbel says : " From 
objects to pictures — from pictures to symbols — from symbols to ideas, 
leads the ladder of knowledge." And Pestalozzi : " There is nothing 
in the mind which has not passed into it through the senses." 

God through Nature. — Symbols. 

The first intimation of a higher being c^me to mankind in the be- 
ginnings of its development — as it still does to the child — through the 
impression^ of the visible world of nature. Man felt his own weak- 
ness in the presence of the giant forces of Nature, contemplated while 
€till in the fermentation stage of its development, and bowed trem- 
blingly before its unknown ruler. He saw that he himself and his ex- 
istence were dependent on the bounty and beneficence of this Nature, 
which, like a loving mother showered all manner of blessings on him, 
and so he loved her in return, and worshiped her through symbols 
chosen from her own treasure-house, till at last, as he became to a cer- 
tain extent acquainted with himself and his own being, he humanized 
the soul of nature after an ideal standard, and worshiped and feared 
it in the shape of his false Gods. 

Who made all the trees and flowers, birds and sheep? who made my 
father and mother? asks the child, seeking after the causes of things, 
because he is himself the beginning of a thinking, reasonable being . 
The roaring of the thunder makes him tremble like the savages — he 
imagines it to be the voice of a higher power ; the reviving breath of 
spring fills him with an undefined sensation of wonder, and awakes in 
him forebodings of the invisible Benefactor whose visible image he 



THE FIRST DEVELOPMENTS OF THE CHILD. 179 

loves in his parents. A child, with his lap full of sweet-smelling flow- 
ers which he is going to weave into a garland, sits on the grass under a 
blossoming apple-tree in which the birds are warbling their spring song ; 
the warm rays of the sun penetrate his being, a cooling wind plays 
gently round his face and showers over him the white blossoms of the 
tree ; a flood of newly experienced bliss uplifts his soul, and his lips 
gently whisper : " It is the good God who is passing by," — the first 
revelation of the deity has entered his soul. 

All religion begins with natural religion, but the God in nature must 
also be recognized in man, though this will not be till the God in nat- 
ure has been apprehended. The develoj)ment of nature and the de- 
velopment of mankind are mutually symbolic one of the other, and 
correspond in their different stages to the various stages of belief in 
God, through which mankind and the individual pass. That is to say, 
the spiritual development of the human soul proceeds according to the 
same system of laws as the development of the organisms of nature — 
for both have a common creator. And not only do they follow the 
same laws of development, but the sequence of stages is the same in 
both cases; everything ascends from the less to the greater. The 
budding-season of spring represents childhood ; the blossom-time of 
summer, youth ; the fruits of harvest, the maturity of manhood ; and 
the decay of winter, that of old age. Everywhere in the world of nature 
we find analogies to the life of the human soul. All natural phenomena 
correspond to ideas, incorporate thoughts, and thus receive a higher 
meaning; or are the signs of spiritual truths to which they give 
expression. Thus they may be called Symbols. 

The profound understanding shown by Frdbel of the path which ed- 
ucation must follow, in order, in this aspect also, to keep in relation to 
human nature, will be more closely examined later on in this work. 

UTTERANCES. 

The utterances of all children are the same, and their origin is the 
same, for they are based on inborn natural impulses. But nature does 
nothing in vain, notliing without an object ; all instincts which have 
not been deflected from their natural direction have but this one end: 
to further the development of the organization of nature, or of the 
human individual. 

The child plays, is constrained to play, in order to develop itself. 
Its play is activity intended to awaken, strengthen, and form its powers 
and talents, so that it may be able to fulfill its destiny as a grown 
being. In like manner the combined activity of mankind — the results 
of which appear in the progressive stages of civilization in the past and 
the present— can have no other end but the realization of perfected 
humanity through the development of all that concerns mankind, or, in 
other words, the fulfillment of the divine idea of humanity. But hu- 
manity is made up of individual men, and thus it follows of necessity, 



180 THE FIRST DEVELOPMENTS OF THE CHILD. 

that the life's aim of the latter must be the same as that of the com- 
munity of which they are members. 

No one thinks of denying that the individual plant, or the individual 
animal, develops itself according to the laws of its tribe. And it is only 
because we understand how the development of the tribe and family of 
a plant or an animal proceeds that we know how to manage the indi- 
vidual specimens. According to the various modifications of this 
natural method of treatment, is the special, individual character of an- 
imals stamped on them ; and this shows itself most distinctly in house- 
dogs. Amongst the same tribe of dogs, one may be much more obedi- 
ent, faithful and dependent, or more vicious and faithless, than others. 

The utterances of every different being bear, likewise, the stamp of 
the tribe to which it belongs, and man is no exception to the rule. It 
follows, therefore, that the instinctive, involuntary expressions and ac- 
tions, which are common to all the individuals of a race, must serve the 
natural end of their development. 

The child is as little conscious of this end as is the savage in a state 
of nature, or the uncultivated grown being, but both are driven and 
led by inwai'd impulses and outward attractions to procure the satisfac- 
tion of their needs, first in order to preserve themselves in existence, 
and then to attain the highest possible state of well-being. The nec- 
essary exertions and practices to this end are the means of their culture. 

The history of the development of mankind teaches us how the bodily 
necessities, food, clothing, shelter from inclement weather, danger, etc., 
and later on the spiritual needs, social intercourse, desire after the true 
and the beautiful, spurred men on to the discovery of all that consti- 
tutes our present possessions in industry, art, and science. 

Just as mankind through its stage of unconsciousness was prepared 
for a succeeding higher stage of development and culture, till it should 
attain to self-consciousness and knowledge of its destiny, so does the 
playful activity of the child prepare it for its later conscious existence. 
But this end will only be accomplished when education holds out to the 
instinctive feeling and groping of childhood the necessary guidance, and 
the fit material to work on. To do this is the object of Frbbel's Kinder- 
garten, which follows out in miniature the chief features of the history 
of human culture, places in the way of children similar experiences, and 
thus prepares them for, and makes them capable of, understanding the 
life of the present day, which is an outcome of the past. 

It need hardly be said, that by the following of the history of culture 
we do not mean the depiction of the different epochs of culture, or of 
the nationalities which represent them (as is often erroneously thought), 
but such a course of instructional activity as shall reproduce in minia- 
ture in the work of the child the progressive development of the race, 
as manifested in the work of mankind. 



FEOEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL VIEWS. 181 



III. EDUCATION IN GENERAL FROEBEL'S THEORY. 

" The purpose of nature is development. The purpose of the spiritual world is cul- 
ture. The problem of this world is au educational one, the solution of which is pro- 
ceeding according to tixed divine laws." 

Education is emancipation — the setting free of the bound-up forces 
of the body and the soul. The inner conditions necessary to this setting 
free or development all healthily-born children bring with them into 
the world, the outer ones must be supplied through education. 

If in the' spring the hard coverings of plants are to burst open so that 
the buds of leaves and blossoms may be set free and sprout, air and sun- 
light, rain and dew must be supplied to them. The inner force will be 
sufficient to break open the shells if the outward conditions are not 
wanting. In nature every necessity or want meets with corresponding 
satisfaction, and this without conscious will or exertion according to 
unchanging laws and principles. The course of the sap in plants, which 
ascends and descends regularly from the root to the blossom, and by a 
continual process of expansion and contraction forms the leaf-buds, cor- 
responds to the course of the blood in animal and human organisms, 
starting from the heart and returning to the heart, and in the action of 
the ventricles, exhibiting in like manner expansion and contraction. 

LAW OF DEVELOPMENT. 

Everything in the kingdom of nature, however different the stages 
of progress may be, comes under one universal law, and development 
means the same as progress according to law, — systematic going on from 
the unformed to the formed, from chaos to cosmos. 

And as does the physical so also must the spiritual development pro- 
ceed in systematic fashion, or education would be impossible. For 
what we call education is influencing the development of the child, 
guiding and regulating it as well in its spiritual as in its physical as- 
pect. But how common a thing it is to hear people maintain that dur- 
ing the instinctive, unconscious period of a child's life, it should be left 
to follow its impulses entirely, and no attempt made to deal with it 
systematically. But, as the soul undoubtedly begins to unfold and form 
itself in the period of unconsciousness in the same systematic manner 
as in later periods, any such assertion must be erroneous and based on 
false premises. Spiritual development must proceed in as regular and 
systematic a course as organic development, seeing that the physical 
organs are intended to correspond as implicitly to the soul, which they 
serve, as cause corresponds to effect. Psychology has determined the 
order of the development of the soul, as has physiology that of the cir- 
culation of the blood, but the former science has chiefly concerned itself 
with the already more or less formed soul of the adult, which, through 
self-will and voluntary deflection from the path of order, is always to a 



182 EDUCATION IN GENEKAL,— FBOEBEL'S THEORY. 

certain extent the slave of arbitrariness, and the growth of the soul in 
the period of childhood has been little studied or observed. 

Frobel used constantly to say when lecturing : " If you want to un- 
derstand clearly the regular working of nature you must observe the 
common wild plants, many of which are designated as weeds : it is seen 
more clearly in these than in the complexity of cultivated plants." 
For this purpose he grew different species of wild plants in pots. 

The same holds true of the human plant. The young child's soul, 
■while yet in its primitive and instinctive stage, without forethought 
and without artificiality, exhibits to the really seeing and understand- 
ing observer the systematic regularity, the logic of nature's dealings in 
her development process, spite of the variety of individual endowment. 

In the foregoing essay we attempted to demonstrate what may be 
called the universal in the " utterances" of child-nature, that which sets 
the stamp of the race on each individual. Through these utterances, 
in so far as they repeat themselves in each individual and may conse- 
quently be reduced to a law, we arrive at the key-note to the knowledge 
of the natural order of child development. 

CORKESPONDENOES. — INDIVIDUAL THE EACE. 

Frbbel says : " There is continuous connection in the spiritual life as 
a whole, as there is universal harmony in nature." And certainly it 
cannot be otherwise : the eternal law of order, which reigns throughout 
the universe, must also determine the development of the human soul. 
But the educator who would supply the human bud in right manner 
with light and warmth, rain and dew, and so induce it to emancipate 
itself from its fettered condition, and through the unfolding of all its 
slumbering forces to blossom into worthy life, must not only understand 
the law but must also possess the means of acting in accordance with 
the law : i. e., his method of education must follow the same systematic 
plan as nature does, and the outward practical means must correspond. 

No one will dispute the assertion that instruction is only worthy of the 
name when it is methodical. Instruction of such kind is a branch of 
education : but branch and stem spring from the same root. However 
much may have been done, from the days of antiquity up to the present 
day, to improve educational and instructional systems, and to adapt 
them more closely to the natural process of development, and thus at- 
tain the result aimed at — knowledge — in the best and quickest manner, 
the laws of development of the infant mind are, nevertheless, still veiled 
in obscurity. No infallible chart has yet been found, which, as the 
magnet to the mariner, will show the educator invariably the right 
direction to steer in, spite of all ebbs and flows, spite of all the thousand 
different courses that each vessel, each character, according to its indi- 
vidual destination, has to strike into. But so long as some such fixed 
m.ethod of education remains undiscovered, so long will even the best 
education be more or less an arbitrary work. 



EDUCATION IN GENERAL— FEOEBEL'S THEORY. 183 

It was also Pestalozzi's chief endeavor to discover and apply that 
Vfhich he called " the principle of the organic," and to him, and his ed- 
ucational forerunners, are we indebted for our first knowledge of the 
course of child development, and for the means by which education and 
instruction have been more systematically organized. Without their 
preliminary efforts Frobel might not, perhaps, have discovered the 
method whereby he built upon the foundation laid by them, and brought 
their, and more especially Pestalozzi's, practical endeavors to comple- 
tion. In like manner will Frobel's successors be called on to develop 
further what he has laid the foundation of. 

In one of his letters to me, Frobel says : " As motion in the universe 
depends on the law of gravitation, so do movements in the life of hu- 
manity depend on the law of unity of life." — And further : " As the laws 
of the fruit are developments of the laws of the flower, and the laws of 
the flower developments of the laws of the bud, and the laws of the bud, 
flower, and fruit, are at the same time one with the laws of the whole 
tree or plant ; so are the laws of the development of spiritual life higher 
outcomes, or developments, of the laws of the solar and planetary sys- 
tem of the universe. Were this not the case man could not understand 
the latter, for he can only understand that which is homogeneous to 
him. And, according to this, the laws of the development of life, in 
the region of the spiritual, must be apprehended, demonstrated, and 
built upon, in the same manner as the laws of the formation of the 
world. It will be the work of the Kindergarten to point out the appli- 
cation of these laws, as one stage of progressive human cultivation." 

Frobel's aim and efforts may, I think, be summed up thus : he was 
striving to hit on a regular course or method of education, corresponding 
to the method of instruction long ago established by pedagogic science. 

Education Includes Character. 
As instruction aims before all things at imparting knowledge, so ed- 
ucation has for its chief object moral culture, the formation of the 
character ; and for this end it is above all necessary that there should 
be freedom of individual movement, room for the development of per- 
.sonality. It may be asked : " How can there be one law for all and 
everything? " But does not the infinite variety of creation rest on the 
eternal basis of the unity of the Creator ? Are not all the heavenly 
bodies alike subject to the law of gravitation, and are they thereby 
hindered from the development of the greatest individuality ? It is an 
undoubted fact that each heavenly body differs from another both in its 
organisms and its productions. We see trees and plants of the most 
different kinds, thriving in the same forests, under the same conditions 
of soil, climate, etc., each individual growth assimilating to itself those 
outward influences only which befit its special nature. So the person- 
ality of the child will only absorb into itself out of that which is pre- 
sented to it, whatever corresponds to its special wants and endowments. 



184 EDUCATION IN GENERAL— FROEBEL'S THEORY. 

And as it is only in consequence of the order of all movement in space 
that the free movement of the heavenly bodies is possible, and that dis- 
tm'bing collisions are avoided, so in the child's nursery, as in the state, 
it is through systematic government alone that freedom is attained — 
freedom of the individual through the freedom of all. 

That education should be carried on in accordance vpith nature is 
granted by nearly all educationalists, at any rate by those of modern 
times, as one of its first requisites. And what is according to nature 
is according to law. 

Now it is both according to law and to nature, that the progressive 
development — of the individual as well as of mankind — should require 
at each new stage, new conditions, and new modes of assistance. The 
bell-glass which protects the germinating plant will not cover the full- 
grown tree, and the man cannot wear the clothes which fitted him in 
his childhood. The conditions of life change and become higher in 
every new epoch and generation, and it must necessarily follow that 
education should make higher and more comprehensive demands on us 
than on the generations before us. 

Amongst our Germanic forefathers, who lived in their forests clothed 
in bear skins, the standard of their children's education was : for the 
boys, that they should learn the use of the spear and the bow, and to 
mount a horse in the battle or the chase, that they should know the 
rights and duties of their tribe, and the customs of the service of the 
gods ; for the girls, that with womanly chastity they should combine 
skill in cooking, spinning, and housekeeping. But this standard no 
longer satisfied the succeeding age of chivalry. And the culture of 
knights and their womankind does not satisfy the demands of our day, 
because the general conditions of life have become different. 

And with these changes of conditions the nature of man, physical 
and spiritual, changes also. Not of course in its essential features ; not 
in the shape and conformation of his body ; nor altogether in his im- 
pulses, passions, and inclinations, or in his processes of thinking, feel- 
ing, and willing. Man has at all times one head, two hands, and two 
feet ; at all times he suffers and enjoys, according to the impressions 
produced on him ; thinks and endeavors in human fashion. But are 
not the barbarian and the cultivated human being just as much dis- 
tinguishable from one another by their outward appearance and de- 
meanor as by their inclinations and endeavors, their thinking and 
willing ? The physical development of the working-classes is so uni- 
versally influenced by their mode of life that in them the bones and 
muscles preponderate ; whereas in those who lead a more intellectual 
life the nervous system dominates. The organization of the head of a 
thinker differs in an important manner both from that of a savage and 
from that of a manual laborer. This difference is transmitted to pos- 
terity ; it is not only physically that children bear the stamp of their 
parents, they also inherit from them mental dispositions. The child of 



EDUCATION IN GENERAL— FROEBELS THEORY. 1S5 

the Hottentot will be born with different dispositions from that of the 
cultivated European, and the child of the nineteenth century from one 
of the barbaric age, because the progress of the race must also express 
itself in the individual. 

In plants and animals we see the influence of cultivation very plainly. 
The wild yellow root, or carrot, must for instance go through twenty 
generations of culture before it becomes eatable ; and after only five 
generations of neglect it will again revert to its wild condition. The 
horse breeder knows that the offspring of a noble race is itself noble, 
and therefore requires higher care than that of a lower race. Manifold 
experience teaches how difficult it often is to educate the child of un- 
couth parents and ancestors — though not necessarily of savage ones — 
for a life of refined cultivation. 

It lies still before the explorers in the science of humanity to discover 
and demonstrate more exactly the powerful influences of mental culture 
on the bodily and mental organism, but it cannot be doubted that the 
higher the culture of a nation has risen, so much the higher endow- 
ments will its children bring with them into the world. 

Can there be any doubt of the necessity for continual reconstruction 
of educational systems, as of all other things, and will any persist in 
maintaining that, what of old was good enough and sufficient for the 
education of mankind is also sufficient now-a-days? To each age, how- 
ever, belongs a special virtue, and it is precisely this which is commonly 
overlgoked by the reformers of the directly succeeding age. However 
much we may be justified in claiming for our own age great advance 
in all school and instructional arrangements, there is also no doubt that 
the preceding generation excelled us in many respects with regard to 
education. Cultivation of character, moral earnestness and religion — 
the foundation of all education — were prevalent in far higher measure. 
The care and attention which the ancient Greeks bestowed in training 
the body for strength, skill and beauty, are also equally wanting in our 
day. Furthermore it cannot be denied that the ruling tendency of ed- 
ucation at the present day has resulted in a one-sided development of 
the understanding, and in the stupefying system of overcramming for 
which our rising generation is remarkable. 

Can any one, moreover, be so blind as not to see the black shadows 
looming in the pathway of the present generation, so deaf as not to 
hear the warning-cry of manifold misery resounding on all sides. The 
blame of this melancholy state of things must undoubtedly be partly 
attributed to faulty education. The characteristic features of our age 
are : — Knowledge without practice ; practice without the stamp of indi- 
viduality; thought precociously developed before fancy and feeling, 
like to bud and blossom, have matured the fruit ; insight without power 
of action ; the capacity for ruling matter degraded to the service of the 
material nature ; no reverence for the all-permeating spirit of God, no 
belief in its eternal working — human intellect regarded as the highest 



186 EDUCATION IX GENERAL— FROEBEL'S THEORY. 

court of appeal. The childlike simplicity which surrenders itself to a 
higher and an invisible power is now almost unknown, for its source in 
the original unsullied nature of childhood becomes early corrupted, and 
education directs the mind only to outward things; learning has come 
to be little more than acceptance of what is imparted, leaving no room 
for any original material to come to the surface, and stifling the innate 
faculties. On all sides there is a crying out for new rights, without 
any regard for the idea of duty. Well does a modern poet lament : 

* " In sadness I gaze on mankind of to-day. 

Who of premature culture the penalty taste ; 
To doubt and to learning a too-early prey, 

They look forth on a future of darkness or waste," 

And because this is the case we see everywhere restlessness, discon- 
tent, a piteous seeking for unattaiued happiness — a deep vein of sad- 
ness runs through modern society, in whose very strains of joy tones of 
sorrow mingle, and which, in the midst of wanton pleasure-seeking, 
longs with wailings and yearnings after the forfeited higher good which 
alone can satisfy the ideal cravings of the soul. The world waits as for 
a magic spell, for a new generation, fashioned for a new world, capable 
of the deeds which that new world demands, open to new truths — who 
shall usher it in ? 

Every penetrating reform, in whatsoever field it may be attempted, 
requires a new truth, a new idea of genius for its foundation. But such 
an idea will seldom seem new in its entirety ; the pages of history wiU 
almost certainly prove that the same idea has already been expressed, 
though in a different setting, by former thinkers, and that, constantly 
recurring, it has gained a standing in different epochs. And whenever 
this is the case there must be something important in question which 
has not hitherto attained to full development. Often it is only a lucky 
hit that is needed to convert into reality an idea that has long been in 
preparation. 

Whether it has happened to Frobel by a like lucky hit to give a new 
basis to education, experience and the application and carrying out of 
his method must show. A written exposition can do no more than 
represent the matter in its general outlines, and thus awaken the de- 
sire to understand it better, and to test its merits by application. 

The most difficult of all difficult tasks is without doubt to give a 
universally enlightening definition to a new truth — great or small — for 
new truths always lie outside the general mental horizon. Even Frobel 
himself, therefore, has had little success in describing his educational 
theory in its full compass, and he is, pej'haps, even more justified than 
Hegel and other thinkers in complaining that he has not been mider- 
stood. Far be it from us to pretend here to expound this idea in its 

* " In Trauern blick' ichhin auf das Geschlecht von heute, 
"Wie es die kiinstlich-friihe Beife biisst ; 
Eriih schon des Zweifels, der Erkenntniss Beute, 
In eine Zukunft schaut, die dunkel oder wust." 



EDUCATION IN GENERAL-FROEBEL'S THEORY. 187 

whole breadth and depth — we would only attempt by means of the fol- 
lowing short statements to open up the way to an understanding of it : 

The process of spiritual development goes on according to fixed laws. 

These laios correspond to the general laws which reign throughout the uni- 
verse, but are at the same time higher, because suited to a higher stage of de- 
velopment. 

This sijstem of laws must be able to be traced back to a fundamental law, 
however much the latter may vary in itsformulce. 

Frbbel calls it : " The law of opposites and their reconciliation," or 

"the law op balance." 

There is nothing, animate or inanimate, to which this law does not 
apply, for everything consists of related opposites : a proposition always 
implies the counter proposition — the existence of God presupposes that 
of the world, that of the world presupposes that of God ; man, as a be. 
ing both conscious and unconscious, links together nature — or uncon. 
scious existence, with God — absolute conscious existence. The inward 
and outward aspects of things are opposites, which the thing itself con- 
nects together. This universal law manifests itself in nature in the 
interchange of matter. Every organism possesses the property of giv- 
ing out on the one hand of its own substance, and taking in on the 
other what has emanated from other organisms. And these opposites 
of giving out and taking in are connected by assimilation and appro- 
priation — a process which varies in each different organism. It is by 
intercliange of this sort that the physical world is kept in continual 
balance, and connection of all its parts. 

In the intellectual world this law manifests itself in a similar, or at 
least an analogous, manner. Mental development is also exchange — a 
mental interchange of matter. The soul takes in from outside, through 
the senses, a stock of impressions and images, which by an inward 
process it converts into thoughts and conceptions, and gives out again 
to the world as words and actions. Without intercourse and exchange 
of ideas with other minds, man would never learn to think. The 
process of thinking is impossible without comparison, and in order to 
compare there must be variety at hand ; but the most distinct difference 
constitutes only relative opposites (absolute opposites do not exist), 
which are blended together by means of concomitant similarities. 
Therefore, thought is also the connection of opposites. 

This long recognized law which, whether in the centrifugal and cen- 
tripetal forces that rule throughout the cosmic universe, or in the in- 
spiration or expiration of the lungs, or the expansion and contraction 
of the sap of plants, etc., has established itself as the law of all life, 
growth, and being — this law Friibel applies to education. For, he 
argues, if this law guides the process of spiritual development in early 
childhood, that is, in the period of non-deliberate action, educators must 
regard it as the law of nature for the human mind if they are to pro- 



188 EDUCATION IN GENERAL— FROEBEL'S THEORY. 

ceed according to nature (Natur-gemass*) and they must apply this law 
in their method, and above all lead children to apply it themselves in 
whatever they do; and this from the beginning of the child's develo{> 
ment, in the stage of unconscious existence, which is the germ of all 
others. In this way the human mind wiU be trained to render to itself 
an ever clearer and clearer account of the laws of its thinking and act- 
ing, while an opposite method of education would more or less hinder 
the mind from attaining the power of clear thought. 

For instance, a child directly it is born begins to take in through its 
senses impressions from outside. It perceives heat and cold, light and 
darkness ; it arrives gradually at distinguishing between hard and soft, 
solid and fluid, near and distaiit, etc. These are all so many kinds of 
opposites. As long as this perceptive faculty is but feebly developed, it 
■will not easily distinguish slight degrees of difference, as, for instance, 
a hard material from one only a little less hard, a near object from one 
a very little farther, and so forth. The more marked the contrast in 
the qualities of different objects (for it is not the things themselves 
that form opposites, but their qualities) the more easily will they be 
distinguished from one another. Now to be able to distinguish is the 
first step towards understanding. Is it not, thei-efore, self-evident that 
this process will be facilitated if the objects with which the child is to 
occupy itself are presented to it in the form of opposites ? If, for in- 
stance, it is to leai'n to distinguish between the size of things, let two 
objects, relatively great and little, be given to it, or for distinction of 
color two contrasting colors, and so forth. 

In Frobel's "second gift," for instance, the sphere (a single surface 
without edges and corners) and the cube (many surfaces, edges, and 
corners) form opposites which the cylinder (containing both a round 
surface like the sphere, and flat surfaces and edges like the cube) 
combines in its form, thus connecting two opposites. 

Through these shapes, and by means of the sense of sight, the child 
receives impressions, nothing more. But out of these impressions, 
feeling and iviUing arise, and later on understanding and thinking, and 
it is because all later development depends on them that early im- 
pressions are so important. 

As God the Creator has everywhere in creation placed opposites side 
by side in order to work out harmony, so must man proceed in like 
fashion, in all his works, if he is to produce harmony. All art is based 
on tlie principle of contrasts. The musician in the trichord connects 
together two discordant tones ; the artist in his pictures blends light 
and shade, dark tints and bright ones, by means of middle tints, etc. 

The child, too, in the Kindergarten, plaits and twists in like manner; 
lays one little stick horizontally, another perpendicularly, and a third 

* The word NaHir-gemdss (according to nature) must never be understood to refer 
to nature in its distorted, corrupted condition, in wMch sense the word natural is 
often used.— iVb^e by the Author. 



EDUCATION IN GENERAL— FROEBEL'S THEORY. 189 

half horizontally, half perpendicularly, in order by means of the slant- 
ing line to connect together the two others. 

And, whilst the child is applying this simple law in a thousand dif- 
ferent ways in its occupation, it is being led on to creativeness, which 
means, as far as mankind is concerned, out of given materials to form 
new combinations. Without law or rule, i. e., method, this is not pos- 
sible. The mode of procedure in all work, whether industrial or 
artistic, must be at bottom systematic. 

If the child in all its little productions, even those of its play, has 
persistently applied this principle of its own mental development, al- 
though at the time conscious of nothing more than that by this simple 
means it could produce the most manifold shapes, figures, etc., far more 
will have been done for its general development, than if it had been at 
once prep ired for all the various branches of school instruction. Ar- 
rangement, distribution, classification, without which no instruction 
can be carried on, and clear thought is impossible, will have become 
habits of his life, and will bring to him clearness of feeling, will and 
thought, the only certain foundations of culture. 

froebel's theory of education. 

As a result of the foregoing we find the first general educational 
requisites to be : 

Assistance of si^ontaneous development which shall accord with the 
laws of nature ; 

Considerations for the outward conditions of life of each epoch, and 
for each personality ; 

Understanding and application of the universal laws of spiritual 
development. 

With regard to the special Service rendered by Frbbel, let me here 
repeat what I have already mentioned, that Frbbel has discovered the 
method and practical means of disciplining, or of developing, body, soul 
and mind, will, feeling and understanding according to the systematic 
laws of nature. 

In the practical application of the positive and individual portion of 
it, the simplicity and naturalness of Frbbel's method stand out mark- 
edly, and at once do away with any idea of its being pedantic or arti- 
ficial, and in opposition to the natural free development of the child. 

No one will deny that the smallest practical discovery which shall 
turn our educational system in a direction corresponding to the de- 
mands of human nature, and of modern times, is of immense impor- 
tance, and must contribute towards facilitating and expediting the great 
reformatory process of our age. Though education cannot do all that 
is needed in this respect, it can do a great deal. 



190 



FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL VIEWS. 



IV. EARLY CHILDHOOD. 



" The renovation of society depends on its moral reform, and this again chiefly on 
improvement in the nature of education. But the results of education depend on its 
first commencements, and these are in the hands of women." 

" Poor humanity! " exclaims Madame de Stael at the sight of all 
the manifold miseries of mankind. With much more truth might one 
exclaim : " Poor childhood ! " for in childhood, and its perverted man- 
agement, lies the source of the greater part of this misery. Adult man- 
kind has weapons wherewith to repel the assaults of temjitation and 
trouble ; helpless childhood is exposed without power of resistance to 
the evils of mismanagement and neglect, and the consequence is that 
human beings find themselves beginning the battle of life already 
maimed by thousands of wounds. If only the human soul were better 
guarded and fostered in its infancy, how many fewer despairing men 
and women should we see ! 

How much has there not been said and written — before and after 
Pestalozzi's " Book for Mothers " — on the importance of first impres- 
sions, and yet what boundless neglect do we see of this first period of 
the growth of the human soul ! If a tender young leaf be pricked in 
spring-time with the finest needle it will show a scar of continually 
increasing size till it withers in the autumn ; how many such needle- 
pricks does not the young child-soul receive — and in them the beginnings 
of many scars, bad habits, faults and vices? Is there a single imman 
being who has not to bear the weight — often a very heavy one — of the 
consequences of some neglect in childhood ? For each one of us the 
roots of our being are planted in our childhood, and as are the roots so 
will be the tree. The good and the bad alike, if they could see down 
into the lowest depths of their existence, would be able to trace back 
their good deeds and their evil ones, in their latest ramifications, to the 
seeds sown in infancy. It is true that the origin, both of physical and 
moral diseases, lies to a great extent in the innate dispositions which 
are the heritage of parents and ancestors, but it depends upon early 
care and training whether these dispositions be developed or suppressed. 
Every single evil tendency can be overcome to a certain degree. 

Nearly all mothers, and especially young ones, think that their chil- 
dren, so softly cradled in the lap of love, are in no way to be pitied, 
that they are protected from all moral hurt, as from every breath of 
cold air. And yet how much harm is done both to their bodies and 
souls by this very mother-love if it be not accompanied by knowledge. 

ERRORS IN PHYSICAL TRAINING. 

How often do we see a young mother, in any class of society, enter 
on her educational office fully prepared for it, even let us say so far as 
the manaQ:ement of health is concerned ? And even if she herself be 



EARLY CHILDHOOD. 191 

thoroughly fitted for her work, can she prevent nurses, and nursery- 
maids, or whoever else may assist her in it, from committing a hundred 
errors ? Why is it that more than half of mankind die during the first 
ten years of life, and of these again the greater number in the first three 
years ? How few children of all ages are really blooming and healthy- 
looking, especially in large towns. The little pale faces are a heavy 
reproach to parents and nurses, and little do these thoughtless mothers 
consider what a terrible responsibility they have undertaken in view of 
the well-being of humanity. 

Here, for instance, is a child who can scarcely bold up its great heavy 
head. When the mother was at her balls the nurse used to give it de- 
coctions of milk and poppy-heads, so that whilst it was sleeping soundly 
she might keep a rendezvous. The water in the little one's head dooms 
it to an early death, or — still worse — to idiocy for life ! There again 
is one whose tottering, uncertain gait tells of bandy legs. Born with a 
scrofulous tendency, it was set too early on the weak limbs which were 
not able to support it. In the thick waist and pale face of another 
child are seen the results of over-feeding, the work, peihaps, of a good- 
natured nursery-maid who was in the habit of sharing her coffee, coarse 
bread, potatoes, etc., with her young chai-ge. Inflammation of the chest, 
brought on during the first months of its life by a draught when it was 
being washed, has developed in another child the seeds of consump- 
tion. Wlio could enumerate all the seemingly trifling causes which, 
followed up by later injurious influences, destroy the health of millions? 
And in depriving a child of health we deprive it also of the power to 
work and to be of any use in the world. A sickl}^ child is always, and 
indeed must be, a coddled and a spoilt one, and grows up into a man 
of ill-health, unable properlj' to maintain his family, or a suffering 
housewife and mother who cannot fulfill her duties. 

Errors in Moral Training. 

But the first pernicious moral influences work almost more terribly. 
The apparent passiveness of the young being easily deceives its elders 
as to its really too ready susceptibility to outward impressions. The 
helpless infant is supposed to be insensible to disorder, insobriety, vul- 
garity or ugliness of surroundings, while all the time the impressions 
are being received which will determine the points of view from which 
the grown man or woman will look out later on the world. 

Each one of us is the offspring of his age and his nation. This means 
to say : each one bears the stamp of those characteristics of his age and 
nation amongst which he is born : and each one reflects the influences 
of his immediate and more distant surroundings. In this respect too 
each one is the offspring of his family, of his mother, his nurse, his 
nursery, his playfellows, etc., for it is in these that his century and his 
nation are first represented to him. The special stamp of individuality 
which his body and soul will bear in later life will be traceable to these 



192 EAULY CHILDHOOD. 

first impressions which influenced the inborn dispositions like rain or 
sunshine. The boy who has been reared in tlie turmoil of camp-life will 
bear a different stamp of character from one who has grown up in peace- 
ful quiet amongst the flowers of a garden. The Spartans and Athenians 
grew up in the self-same country, under the same sky — but how differ- 
ently did culture and morals color their national characters. Culture 
and morals are the result of education — of that which is bestowed as 
well as of that which goes on of itself. 

There are certainly few errors which have had such a pernicious and 
hampering effect on the development of good in humanity as the one 
which treats children in their earliest childhood merely as physical be- 
ings, and regards the soul at this period as wholly unsusceptible and 
without requirements. The soul, which makes its existence unmistak- 
ably known later, must have grown out of a former if only a dormant 
state, in which state it must have acquired the strength to manifest 
itself at last openly. The soul then exists as such already in infancy. 
But in what manner does it arrive at its later development ? It can 
only be through impressions received from outside, through the influ- 
ence of the surroundings. Body and soul at the beginning of life may 
be said to be one, and bodily desires and needs are seemingly all that 
express themselves. But the foundation of these bodily desires is a 
spiritual one. The organs must first be strengthened before the soul 
can make use of them, but simultaneously with their development the 
soul itself grows, and according to the form which these organs, whether 
limbs or senses, take will be in great measure the spiritual stamp. 
Every physical impression is at the same time a spiritual one, and all 
the more lasting in proportion to the youth and want of power of resist- 
ance of the being in question. The reason why children so easily con- 
tract the mien, gestures, and habits of their surroundings is that they 
have no power of resistance — everything outside them is stronger than 
themselves, and they have to borrow from all outward influences for 
their own growth. Hence they are good, cheerful and contented, or 
bad, morose and discontented, just according to their surroundings. 

It is a great mistake, for instance, to imagine that the vulgar, unre- 
fined manners of servants have no effect on children in their first two 
or three years, or even in their first months. It is evident that a child 
grows like its nurse from the fact that in a greater or less degree it 
catches her expressions. The foundations of the strongest passions, fail- 
ings and vices may be laid when the human being is in its earliest stage, 
a mere infant in arms. To have been in infancy witness of improper 
behavior may have been the beginning of lust. Anger and lying piost 
children learn from the servants of the house — if not from their par- 
ents ! Picking leads to stealing. Many a promising lad has been led 
on to deceit and theft from no other cause than that his mother was 
wanting in order and management, and unable to teach him either by 
example or guidance ; or because she was too weak to resist the wishes 



EARLY CHILDHOOD. 193 

of her child ; he did not learn to bear contradiction in childhood, and in 
after years he could not accustom himself to it. 

Many a conscientious mother will doubtless smile to herself and 
think : I am not guilty of these sins. I wash and dress my child my- 
self, or am present while it is being done ; I have good nurses to look 
after it ; I feed it myself ; I play and talk with it to develop its little 
mind ; I do not let it associate with vulgar people, and so forth. And 
nevertheless it was the child of a very conscientious and cultivated 
mother — a little girl of six years old — who was assaulted by a soldier, 
in a public park, in the coarsest and most improper manner, because it 
hindered his tete-a-tete with the nurse. And every glance into the world 
reveals such-like hideous pictures. They show that even the best of 
mothers cannot be too careful, can never be over rich in precautions, 
and that they all need preparation for their calling. 

Neglect of the Intellect. 

No less sure in its vengeance is the early neglect of the intellect. 
What a multitude of " confused heads " does one see in our days, per- 
sons incapable of mastering the wealth of ideas of the present day. 
One great cause of this is not unfrequently found in the meaningless 
playthings heaped together without the slightest order, with which the 
year-old child is set to amuse itself. For inward clearness proceeds 
from outward order. As soon could the eyes of a grown person take 
in at a glance all the innumerable objects of an industrial exhibition, 
as the young uncultivated eye of an infant distinguish from one another 
the shapeless, generally broken objects, through which it has to acquire 
its first knowledge. Yes, knowledge ! For can the child understand 
anything else before it has, to a certain extent, learned to know form, 
color, material, size, number, etc. — that is to say the qualities of things? 
But this faculty of distinguishing begins partly in the earliest years, as 
the child itself plainly manifests ; it would not otherwise crow with de- 
light when its hat and cloak are produced to take it out of doors, or cry 
when the sight of bath and towel indicate to it preparations for washing. 

No one would dream of expecting a child of six or seven years old^ 
because it had been supplied with the necessary materials, — paper, ink, 
books, etc., to learn to read and write by itself without instruction, and 
how should an infant, up to its third year, learn without assistance to 
distinguish all the many different things which surround it, and their 
qualities, in the clear manner which is necessary to develop in it clear 
perception ? Without the proper materials and without help, it will 
also learn badly what it has to know in order to be prepared for later 
school instruction. 

It is through the senses that the young being takes in the first nour- 
ishment for the faintly glimmering spark of the soul. 

As physical nourishment, and especially that given in early years, is 

by no means a matter of indifference as regards the growth of the body, 

13 



194 EARLY CHILDHOOD. 

SO it cannot be considered immaterial what kind of spiritual food is 
afforded at this early period. The development of the soul does not 
depend merely on the fact of the limbs, senses, and organs, being 
formed — it depends also on how they are formed. 

As eagerly as the babe at the breast sucks in its mother's milk, so do 
the senses (eyes and ears above all) suck in the nourishment of the soul. 
Frbbel calls this spiritual sucking in "ein Augen," because the eye is 
specially active in the process. In this first period of existence when the 
child is a sucking-babe, receptiveness is the dominant faculty. Just as 
the bees gather from thousands of flowers the stores with which they pre- 
pare their honey, so from the outer world the child's soul collects a 
store of images which must stamp themselves upon it, and grow into 
ideas, before the first signs of spontaneous mental activity can show 
themselves outwardly. Up to this point the forces of the soul work 
only inwardly and invisibly, like the seed of a plant before it has begun 
to sprout. And as seeds will wither and come to nothing if they be 
not watered and tended, so will mental faculties if proper care be de- 
nied them. And in what else can this first fostering of the infant soul 
consist than in surrounding it with influences and images of beauty, 
truth and morality ? These are the three objects of human, and there- 
fore also of infant, development. 

REQDISITES FOR HEALTHY MENTAL GROWTH. 

The first requisite then is to discover the right method by which 
children should take in knowledge before the period in which the under- 
standing begins to work. Because it has hitherto been supposed that 
the, feelers of the infant soul take in all the nourishment necessary to it, 
just as the instinct of the young animal leads it to its proper food, no 
external care has been considered necessary. But no more than a young 
animal could satisfy its hunger in a sandy desert, can the instinct of 
the child's soul still its cravings where the surroundings offer nothing 
that it can make use of. But it may be asked, do not nature and the 
outwai'd world present eveiywhere forms, colors, sounds, and materials, 
which may serve as pictures for the child's inner world? No doubt 
they do, but in a scattered form, not collected together and arranged 
in such manner that they can be taken in by the eye that has as yet 
seen notliing, the ear that has heard nothing — not in the simple and 
elementary form required by the unpracticed eye. Can a child's eye 
in its eai'liest years take in the beauty of a landscape with its thousand 
different features and gradations, even when it is represented on a 
small scale in a picture ? Or can a child's ear convey a Beethoven sym- 
phony, even as a general impression only, to the soul? Impossible! 
For the organs have not yet the necessary strength for sustaining such 
complicated images, nor the soul the capacity for grasping them. In- 
fluences and attractions of undue magnitude and power weaken the 
young organs, and leave the soul wholly indifferent, because untouched. 



EARLY CHILDHOOD. 195 

As nature has prepared for the child its fit bodily food in its mother's 
milk, so must the mind of the mother pi-epare the food for her child's 
soul by placing all the widely scattered natural objects in such manner 
before its senses that the feelers, which these put out, may be able to 
find and take hold of the right materials. And further, by removing 
from its surroundings whatever may influence perniciously the germinat- 
ing soul. 

The mother has to paint the great pictures of nature and reality in 
miniature, to separate single objects, to select and dress up, so as to 
produce symbols of beauty, truth, and morality adapted to infant com- 
prehension. To determine these symbols for the earliest stage of de- 
velopment is an art, and a difficult art; it involves a knowledge of 
human nature, of physiology and psychology: how shall mothers, all 
mothers, attain to it? 

The maternal instinct, maternal love, is, indeed, a magic power en- 
abling the simplest women often to work wonders ; and without this 
wonder of love humanity would hardly have developed itself in its in- 
fancy. But at the same time every mother is not capable of finding 
out for herself what her child's soul requires, in order that none of its 
faculties may be arrested, but all brought to their full development. 

It is always individuals who find out what all need. For all its ne- 
cessities mankind has had its discoverers, its inventors, its geniuses, who 
have satisfied each want in turn, and who, as missionaries of God, have 
reformed and beautified human existence and quenched the thirst of 
the human soul after truth. 

Frobel has fulfilled the mission of satisfying the need and higher de- 
mands of childhood, arising out of the new stage of human develop- 
ment, and of furnishing mothers with the symbols by means of which, 
as by the leading-string of truth, they may lead young souls through 
the first labyrinth of life. His mind it was that selected and arranged 
materials, forms, colors and sounds with elementary simplicity, and in 
such a manner that they might penetrate the child's soul without dis- 
turbing the stillness of its budding life, without awakening it suddenly 
or artificially, and at the same time without letting the glimmering 
spark of the soul be stifled in the ashes of materialism. Frobel found 
out the certain rule by which the mother may be safely and freely 
guided in her search for the right method of tending the human plant 
entrusted to her. 

But what is this right method? Is everything to be prepared for the 
germinating infant mind, everything weighed out, all exertion spared 
it, and is it simply to rest in its passivity, as on its mother's breast ? 
Yes, at the beginning of its existence the world of its surroundings 
must be adapted, arranged and modeled according to its needs, as its 
cradle and clothing are prepared for its body, because the sucking babe 
must first suck, i. e., take in, and can as yet procure nothing for itself. 
But let only a few months go by, and it will begin to stretch out its 



196 EAKLY CHILDHOOD. 

hands eagerly as if to lay claim to its share of the world. Frobel says 
that the first grasping of childish hands is a sign of mental awakening. 
With the hands man begins to take possession of the material good 
things of the world, till the mind in its fashion begins also to grasp. 
It is only by appropriation that a human being can place himself in 
relation or connect himself with the outward world, but appropriation 
must be followed by action, as duties come with rights. The spon- 
taneous action of the child, which is the beginning of future labors, 
begins already in the earliest months. It shows itself in the first grasp- 
ing with the hands ; but instead of encouraging and assisting this prac- 
tice, whereby a sense of space and distance is developed, people too 
often hinder it by handing to the child or taking away from it the 
object which it grasped at with its little hands for the purpose of study- 
ing it by touch. 

Child's Instinct to Play. 

Constant stimulus to spontaneous action is the first principle of 
Frobel's educational method. He says : " The beginning of a child's 
activity is the conversion of the outward into the inward ; " — i. e., tak- 
ing in outward things as impressions — " In order afterwards to make 
the inward again outward ; " — or in other words, to work up into ideas 
and thoughts the impressions taken in, and give them out again in 
words and actions. In his " Sunday papers " he says : " Taking in and 
living out is a fundamental necessity of child-nature, as indeed of 
humanity in general. The earthly destination of mankind is, by careful 
assimilation of the outer world, by the forming of his nature, by the 
expression of his inner life outside himself, and by careful comparison 
of this inner life with outward life, to attain to the knowledge of their 
oneness, to the knowledge of what life consists in, and to a faithful 
living up to its demands." 

But suppose the right kind of surrounding to have been prepared for 
a child, so that it is able to take in images of beauty, truth and 
morality, how is it to " live out " that which it has taken in ? How is it 
to become spontaneously active? In what form is it to express its indi- 
vidual nature? It must live out the self, the inner being, which nature 
has bestowed on it, in that manner, in that form, which its childish 
instinct prescribes to it, viz., in play. 

Play is free activity, engendered by happiness and well-being. To 
develop itself is happiness and well-being to a child so long as the pro- 
cess is in accordance with nature ; in order that it may develop itself 
the child plays in happy unconsciousness — for it knows nothing of the 
object of its activity. '* Play is the first poetry of the child," says J. 
Paul, but play means also its first deeds, which are the expression of 
human nature, of human life. It is the preparatory exercise for this 
life. The child begins its existence, after the first months of mere 
taking in, by handling, producing and transforming : for to transform 
the world is the business of humanity. 



EARLY CHILDHOOD. 197 

When a child of but a few months old applies its whole strength to 
thumping on the table with some object or other, or to flinging it over 
and over again on the ground, or from its mother's arms opens and 
shuts the door, etc., it is exercising its young forces, and it derives 
pleasure from so doing — it may be said to be playing — though as yet 
without conscious end and without manifestation of its individual 
nature. When at a somewhat later age, while playing with its doll it 
imitates all that happens to itself, the way in which it is washed, or 
dressed, etc., or whatever it sees going on in the kitchen, in the work- 
shop, in the garden, in the street, the instinct of imitation is developing 
its ideas, and stimulating it to ever new dramatic representations from 
the life of gi'own people, and the young mind is now exercising its forces. 
But this activity is still so to say universal, in so far as the child only 
gives back universal impressions made on it, without its individual 
stamps standing out distinctly — though at the same time difference of 
disposition may already distinguish the boy from the girl, the sanguine 
temperament from the phlegmatic, and various features show individu- 
ality of character. It is only specially-gifted children and artistic or 
scientific geniuses of the future whose individual endowments are often 
strongly pronounced at the earliest age, even though all musical com- 
posers do not, like tlie little Mozart, compose sonatas at six years old. 

Doing and handling alone are not enough to cause the individuality 
of a child, the kernel of its personality, the Divine thought in it to blos- 
som forth — for this, actual production and creation are necessary. It 
is in the works of its hands that the signs must be sought which will 
point to the special vocation it is destined for. 

The degree of practical skill of which little child-hands are capable 
is shown by many an industry in which child labor is misused, for it 
is employed like a machine, always in one direction only. But the 
child's mind can only produce in the joyousuess of play, with the stim- 
ulus of a desired end to be attained, of an awakened sense of the beau- 
tiful to be satisfied, or contentment of one kind or another, to be 
reached as the result of its endeavors. With such an aim the healthy 
child will spare itself no trouble, no exertion — indeed, without any 
definite aim it delights in exhausting itself with activity ; its nature 
impels it to do so, for it is created for labor. But it must also become 
artist i. e., it must originate within the limits of its own small powers, 
if the flower of its individuality is to unfold. For this purpose the 
ordinary, imitative, aimless play is not sufficient; its efforts require the 
guiding and determining of suitable materials. 

How eagerly do children long and beg for the participation of their 
elders in their play — for their guidance and direction ; with what zeal 
do they collect all available materials to enable them to carry out their 
little ideas. But grown-up people, when they do join in the amuse- 
ments of children, understand but imperfectly how to be wise leaders, 
and the materials at hand are seldom suitable. Chance-found material 



198 EARLY CHILDHOOD. 

is generally too rough to be worked upon ; and finished objects leave 
nothing over to be done. It has often been remarked that childish 
fancy prefers an unfinished article to a finished one, a bit of wood to a 
doll, because it can do something more to it ; and it is sufficiently evi- 
dent that the continually increasing wealth and perfection of toys only 
serve to produce dullness in children, or destructiveness as the only form 
of activity left to them, or, at any rate, satiety, weariness, and a fatal 
love of distraction which causes a constant craving for change, while, 
amid all this superfluity of diversion, the inactivity of the powers makes 
any real satisfaction an impossibility. 

Frobel, when a little boy, tried once very hard with the material that 
he had collected — stones, boards, and splints — to build a model of the 
Gothic church of his village, but, after long fruitless struggles, he threw 
up his work in childish rage. This incident, however, gave birth to 
the later thought that children have need of prepared material and 
guidance, even for the exerc^es they carry on in play, in order that the 
real meaning and object of play may be fulfilled. His own childish 
games in his father's garden were the foundation of his " means of 
employment during the first childhood," which are applied in his 
Kindergarten. 

ULTIMATE PURPOSE OF PLAYTHINGS. 

The purpose of the playthings, which he has devised, is to facilitate 
from the very first months the perception of outward objects ; by the 
simplicity, the method, and above all, the fitness of the things set 
before the child, to enable it the more easily to take in form, size, num- 
ber, color, sound, etc., and by their definiteness, serial order, and con- 
nection, to produce clear and distinct impressions which shall corres- 
pond to the first budding powers of comprehension. They serve, also, 
to assist the development of the senses and organs in the easiest man- 
ner, viz., through the own action of the child, so that it may be rendered 
capable of living out its innerself in accordance with its individual en- 
dowments, and of recognizing itself in its works, as works of art reflect 
the soul of the artist. 

Through Frobel the childish instinct of play has been converted into 
conscious action. He perceived the end which nature intended to reach 
by its means ; saw the analogy between the process of development in 
early childhood and the evolutionary development of humanity, and was 
able, by a penetrating glance at the relations of these two processes to 
one another, to discover the true method for the satisfaction of the 
impulse of culture which is innate in man, and through which he has 
been led to the development of himself and his world. 

It has been well said : " Genius brings with it its own path, the gifted 
nature reaches its goal." Providence, it is true, allows those chosen by 
it for great tasks to select for themselves the means of their fulfillment ; 
but who can say how much labor, how many fruitless struggles, how 
many tears of despair might have been saved them ? Or how much 



EAKLY CHILDHOOD. jgg 

greater tlieir services, how much wider their hearts might have been ? 
Many, no doubt, would say that it is just these tears, and struggles, and 
agouies of despair, which develop genius or character; — and certainly a 
man has always to thank his own endeavors which developed his 
faculties, for his greatness. But the point in question is to direct these 
exertions to the right end and enable them to reach it, and, above all, 
to recognize endowments betimes. If a person gifted with a fine voice 
does not sing, he or she cannot become a singer ; and if Thorwaldsen 
and Humboldt, like Casper Hauser, had been confined for fifteen years 
in a dark cellar where they could see and hear and do nothing, their 
genius would never have unfolded itself. But who could count the 
fast-bound gifts and powers which fall like unripe fruit from the tree 
of humanity, because no school was at hand for their development, 
because the soul was not loosed from its darkness ? The number of 
geniuses will not be less because their crowns of thorns are exchanged 
for crowns of roses, but, on the contrary, will multiply beyond all power 
of calculation when the faculties have room given them for joyous work 
and effort, and when, through wise guidance, the vocation of the indi- 
vidual is made plain to him when still a child, and the shortest way to 
its fulfillment painted out. 

All Sysiphus labor should be spared, especially in childhood, which 
should be, before all things, a time of happiness ; and the way to make 
it so is by encouraging natural activity, by setting free the imprisoned 
forces, and by enabling children to live in accordance with their needs, 
to collect experiences, and to learn for themselves without school disci- 
pline. The creative spirit must be allowed to work in them, that thus 
the rising generation may be saved from the demon of excitement-seek- 
ing, which is ruining morality in our days. Action, in the form of 
play, must supply the elements of all knowledge and practice, so that 
unity and connection may pervade the whole culture. The child should 
come to school ready equipped with all the fundamental conditions 
necessary for true learning ; and these are : to be able to see with one's 
own eyes ; to hear with one's own ears ; to possess the power of observ- 
ing and attending ; to have a thirst for knowledge ; to be able rightly 
to perceive and distinguish the different surrounding objects, and to be 
able, through construction in childish fashion, to give outward expres- 
sion to the inward self. 

Morality and virtue must be learned through doing and practicing; 
words alone will never teach them. It is only by action that the will 
is strengthened and the capacity for great and good deeds ripened. 
And, for this purpose, children will seldom find so fit a field as the 
Kindergarten presents to them. No age ever called for such a throng 
of action as does ours ! The industrial works of our day are gigantic 
as the pyramids of Egypt ; but, instead of centuries, like the latter, 
they require only days for their completion, and the outward world is 
being reconstructed with astounding rapidity. 



200 EAELY CHILDHOOD. 

But all the slower, alas, does the moral reconstraction go forward ! 
What force shall be mighty enough to rival, in this field, the wonders 
of industry ? Is there a higher force than love, which, in its divine 
nature, created the world ? And what love is more powerful than that 
of the mother? The Divine spark of love in the human breast never 
burns with a purer and a holier fire than on the sacrificial altar of the 
mother's heart, which the ashes of a ruined world would not suffice to 
quench. Shall not this force, then, be mighty enough to contribute to 
the purifying and sanctifying of human society in an age when a new 
phcenix is striving to rise from the ashes of centuries ? 

It is not enough that saving ideas should be carried about in the 
world ; there must also be the necessary devotion, the good-will, the 
endurance, the power of self-sacrifice, to carry them' out. The male 
genius of humanity begets the ideas of which each century has need ; 
the female genius has to work them out. 

The genius of mankind is two-sexed, but a long period has gone by 
during which the world has received its stamp from the male half only, 
and the result is that many fields are barren, large tracts parched and 
arid. The dews of emotion and love can alone refructify them. A cry 
is going up on all sides calling to the slumbering second genius of 
humanity to awake, and appealing to the " Zove ybrce " of woman for 
redeeming works. The cry of the children calls to the hearts of moth- 
ers that here is the material out of which they may build up a new 
generation which shall impart the spirit of moral greatness and dignity 
to the beautified outward world, so that the body may not remain with- 
out , a soul. A new key has been found to unlock the nature of the 
child, a new alphabet is ready wherewith to decipher its secrets — will 
not the mothers of our day snatch gladly at this key, and eagerly study 
this new book for mothers ? And will not the young women too who 
are not yet mothers, joyfully undertake the sacred office of educators of 
childhood to which Frobel calls them ? 



FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL VIEWS. 201 



( V. GENERAL IDEAS. PECULIARITIES OF METHOD. 

We have attempted so far to draw out more fully and to make 
universally comprehensible the following general ideas of Frobel. 

1. The destiny of a child is, to be the child of nature, the child of 
humanity, and the child of God. 

Or, the human being as a product of the earth belongs to the 
material physical world, and is of necessity subject to the laws of this 
world ; as a personality he comes out of the range of these laws and 
stands as man on the higher ground of self-knowledge and freedom ; 
and lastly, through right development and a life in harmony with it, 
he attains to the still higher spiritual community of universal humanity 
in which the divine spark of the human soul begins to shine, and he 
enters into relation with the world outside the limits of earth, and with 
the source of all things. 

2. In the utterances of the child, which are the mirror of its nature, 
we recognize on a small scale the development of humanity in its infancy. 

Or in other words, the individual will always reflect the characteris- 
tics of the race, as may be proved by the analogy between the historical 
epochs in the world's progress, and the universal stages in the life of 
childhood. 

3. The education of children requires : consideration of human nature 
in general, which changes with the progressive development of the race; 
consideration of the age in which they are living ; of the personality of 
each individual character ; and lastly of the law of development, which 
as regards the spiritual nature is " a higher outcome of the general law 
of development of the universe." 

4. The first period of childhood — as being the most important with 
regard to human development in general — is not yet sufiiciently con- 
sidered and cared for ; the first needs of the soul are almost entirely dis- 
regarded ; Frobel offers the means by which the female sex may be 
more adequately prepared for its vocation as the first educators of 
childhood. 

These fundamental ideas must be accepted before Frobel's method 
and means of education can be understood and appreciated in their 
full significance. In their general acceptation these ideas have un- 
doubtedly been more or less expressed in different ages and at dif- 
ferent times, and every thoughtful educationalist has more or less 
recognized them. But in the relation which Frobel gives them, and 
the application discovered for them by him, they are new. 

An idea is never realized by one human mind, or even by one gen- 
eration ; it is part of the scheme of the great Ruler who sends these 
ideas to the earth, these sparks from the eternal altar of truth, that 
they should go on ripening for centuries before they are allowed to 



202 GENERAL IDEAS.— PECULIARITIES OF METHOD. 

bear fruit. Every new truth, which has become a reality, has had 
behind it a host of zealous spirits, who have been compelled to fight 
for it anil force open a way, may be at the peril of their lives, before 
it could make its entry into the region of reality. And often it hap- 
pens that the man or woman in whose mind the light of a new truth 
first kindled remains forever unknown. 

Before a new idea assumes an established form it must have been 
thought out again and again by the various successors of its first pio- 
neer, each one of whom will have something to contribute to what has 
been already conceded — not merely an amendment here or there, but a 
new thought which will alter, or give afresh basis to the entire scheme. 
And this is essentially the work of genius — the fire in which evei-y 
spark of truth is kindled. If a new thought is to be fused into any 
scheme that has been already ripening for some time, the whole ground 
which has been gone over and gained from the birth of the scheme 
down to its present stage must be contemplated anew from an inde- 
pendent stand-point. Evei-y man of science who contributes something 
new to his special branch must be well up in all that has been done 
before his time ; he must reckon up again the whole sum of results 
already gained if he has received a fresh amount to be added to it. 
What but the intuitive power of genius would be equal to such a task? 

In the field of education the same truth holds good : Frbbel's idea of 
" human education conducted according to an infallible method " had 
been groped after, worked at, nourished and fostered for centuries by 
minds kindred to his own, until at last it was able to be formulated 
and expressed with some sort of clearness. 

Method or Plan of Work. 

The pith of the educational theory in question may be summed up 
in few words, as follows : — there must be a methodical and systematic 
plan, according to which every healthily born human being (relatively 
speaking !) can be in such manner surrounded and guided that his 
inborn faculties and powers may be sure of complete development. 

Before the theory in question, together with what Frobel has done 
towards carrying it out, can be clearly esi^ounded, it is necessary to 
come to an understanding as to what is meant by method, and to dis- 
tinguish rightly between an educational and instructional method. 

^here are many people who while allowing that instruction shoiild be 
imparted methodically to children at quite an early age, nevertheless 
think it foolish and unpractical to dream of educating a child according 
to a method from the beginning of its existence. They think that free 
spontaneous development, the growth of individuality, would be hin- 
dered thereby. 

The idea of method in its general signification may be defined as 
follows : A systematic plan, that is to say a plan which could not be 
any other than what it is, and such as after repeated experiences it has 
become, for reaching any given end in the easiest and best possible 
way. Or the following of definite rules to attain an object in view. 



GENERAL IDEAS.— PECULIABITIES OF METHOD. 203 

In all and everything that has to be accomplished there must be owe 
way which leads more directly than any other to the wished-for goal. 
When once this most direct way to any given end has been established, 
each one has but to follow it : that is to say, to apply certain fixed 
rules which have resulted from experience ; and it is in this application 
of fixed rules that method consists. This is true of all work without 
exception — the least as well as the greatest. 

No art, not even that of cooking, can be carried on without such a 
system of rules. Suppose a cook, for instance, were to put together 
the ingredients of her dough in an arbitrary manner, without regard 
to weight, and to bake them without first mixing and stirring them, 
the bread would not turn out well. And what applies to industrial pro- 
cesses ai^plies equally to artistic and mental work. Poetry cannot dis- 
pense with metre and the laws of versification ; musical compositions 
must be based on the laws of harmony. 

Even when people wa-ite poetry without any knowiedge of metrical 
rules, they nevertheless unconsciously apply these rules ; their composi- 
tions could not be called poetry if a definite plan of syllables did not 
produ:e rhythm. In the same way, people gifted with musical talent do 
not need to have learned the laws of harmony, in order to apply them 
in musical improvising. But without that unconscious application, 
only discordance would be the result, and never a complete tune. 

Tills unconscious and intuitive application of every kind of laws 
proves that the foundation of all systems lies in human nature itself — 
is an innate faculty. If this were not the case no amount of experience 
would enable man to comprehend the laws outside himself, either in 
nature or in human work. 

The imparting of knowledge according to some such a plan of laws 
is called methodical instruction. Nothing can be called real instruction 
which does not proceed according to a method, and no one will have a 
word to say against instruction being methodical. Every one knows 
that a language cannot be thoroughly learned without a grammar which 
sets before the pupil the rules or laws of the language. 

Instruction, or teaching, as such, has to do with the powers of appre- 
hension, the understanding of the pupil, -and, in addition to the impart- 
ing of positive knowledge, aims at exercising and developing the power 
of thought. The laws of instructional methods must therefore corres- 
pond to the laws of human thought. In what do these laws of human 
thought consist ? 

Let us be permitted to give here a few rapid indications which are 
necessary to the clear exposition of our subject. A psychological 
treatment of it would be out of place. These indications, moreover, 
will not be given in accordance with the numerous definitions of philo- 
sophical authorities, but only in the sense in which inward and out- 
ward observation brings them to the notice of every sound human in- 
tellect, and in which they lie at the bottom of Frobel's views. 



204 GENERAL IDEAS.— PECULIAEITIES OF METHOD. 

Frahel's Law of Opposites and their Reconcilement, 

What, then, is the process of the human mind in reflection ? The 
systematic process, as it is the same for all minds. 

Every thought must relate to something that we know, and first of 
all to visible objects ; we must have an object of thought. This object 
of thought must not only be taken in by the senses as a whole, so that 
a general idea of it is gained, as of a foreign plant that has been seen 
superficially in a picture, without the details of leaves, blossoms, sta- 
mens, etc. It must be observed and studied in all its parts and details. 
If we want to acquire a thorough knowledge of a foreign plant we 
must compare all its properties with those of plants known to us. 
When the properties or qualities of different objects are all exactly the 
same we cannot compare them; if there is to be comparison, there 
must be a certain amount of diffei'ence — but difference, side-by-side 
with similarity. The qualities which are similar will be the universal 
ones, which everything possesses, as form, size, color, material, etc., for 
there is nothing that does not possess these qualities. The different, or 
contrasting qualities, will consist in variations of the universal ones of 
form, size, etc., as, for instance, round and square, great and little, hard 
and soft, etc. Such differences in properties that have a general 
resemblance are called opposites. 

All such opposites, however, are at the same time connected and 
bound together. The greatest size that we can imagine to ourselves is 
connected with the smallest by all the different sizes that lie between ; 
the darkest color with all the lightest by all the intermediate shades ; 
from an angular shape one can gradually go over to a round one through 
a series of modifications of form ; and from hard to soft through all the 
different gradations. Not that one and the same object can ever be 
both hard or soft, dark or light, great or little, but the collective qual- 
ities of all existing objects go over from their superlative on the one 
side to their superlative on the other, hardest to softest, darkest to 
lightest, and so on. 

The gradations of great and little, hard and soft, etc., which lie 
between the opposites, are the connecting links, or, as Frobel puts it, 
" the means of reconciliation of opposites " (and Frbbel's system can- 
not be rightly understood unless this principle, which forms the basis 
of it, be acknowledged). This "reconciliation" is effected through 
affinity of qualities. Black and white are not alike, but opposite ; the 
darkest red, however, is in aflSnity with black, as the lightest red is 
with white, and all the different gradations of red connect together the 
opposites, black and white. 

Now any one who has compared an unknown plant with known 
ones, in all the details of its different parts — leaf, flower, fruit, etc., is 
in a position to pass judgment on it, and to draw a conclusion as to 
whether it belongs to this or that known genus of plants, and what is 
its species. Thus the natural process of thought is as follows : percep- 
tion, observation, comparison, judgment and conclusion. 



GENERAL IDEAS.— PECULIARITIES OF METHOD. £05 

Without this series of preliminary steps no thought can be worked 
out, and the ruling principle is the law of the reconciliation of oppo- 
sites, or the finding out the like and unlike qualities of things. 

It matters not how far the thinker be conscious or unconscious of 
the process going on in his mind. The child is entirely unconscious of 
it, and therefore takes longer to reach from one stage to another. At 
first it receives only general impressions ; then perception comes in ; 
gradually ideas begin to shape themselves in its mind, and it then 
learns to compare and disting-uish ; but judging and concluding do not 
begin till the third or fourth year, and then only vaguely and dimly. 
Nevertheless, the same systematic process is at work as in the con- 
scious thought of the adult. 

PestalOfZi's Fundamental Laic, 

Any system of instruction which is to be effectual must therefore 
take into account this law of thought (or logic); it must apply the fun- 
damental principle of connecting the known with the unknown by means oj 
comjmrison. This principle is, however, everlastingly sinned against, 
and people talk to children about things and communicate to them 
opinions and thoughts concerning them, of which children have no con- 
ception and can form none. And this is done even after Pestalozzi by 
his " method of observation and its practical application " has placed in- 
struction on a true basis. 

Of the manner in which Frobel has built upon this foundation we 
shall speak later. We have here to deal first with education, to show 
how far it differs from instruction, and, whether a systematic or meth- 
odical process is applicable to it, as Frobel considers it to be. 

When Pestalozzi was endeavoring to construct his "Fundamental 
Method of Instruction " (" Urform des Lehrens ") according to some 
definite principle, he recognized the truth that the problem of educa- 
tion cannot be fully solved by any merely instructional system how- 
ever much in accordance with the laws of nature. He saw that the 
moral forces of the human soul, feeling and will, require to be dealt 
with in a manner analogous to the cultivation of the intellectual facul- 
ties, that any merely instructional method is inadequate to the task, 
and that a training-school of another sort is needed for the moral side 
of cultivation— one in which the power of moral action may be ac- 
quired. While searching for some such " psychological basis " to his 
method he exclaimed, " I am still as the voice of one crying in the 
wilderness." 

As a means to this end he requires an A B C of the science and a 
system of moral exercises, and he says : " The culture of the moral 
faculties rests on the same organic laws which are the foundation of 
our intellectual culture." 

Fichte (in his " Discourses ") insists on an "A B C of perception," 
which is to precede Pestalozzi's "A B C of observation," and speaks as 
follows : " The new method must be able to shape and determine its 
pupil's course of life according to fixed and infallible rules." 



206 GENERAL IDEAS.-PECULIARITIES OF METHOD. 

" There must be a definite system of rules by which always, without 
exception, a firm will may be produced." 

The development of children into men and women must be brought 
under the laws of a well-considered system, which shall never fail to 
accomplish its end, viz., the cultivation in them of a firm and invaria- 
bly right will. 

This moral activity, which has to be developed in the pupil, is with- 
out doubt based on laws, which laws the agent finds out for himself by 
direct personal experience, and the same holds good of the voluntary 
development carried on later, which cannot be fruitful of good results 
unless based on the fundamental laws of nature. 

Thus Pestalozzi and Fichte — like all thinkers on the question of edu- 
cation — searched for the laws of human nature, in order to apply these 
laws in the cultivation of human nature. 

Frdbel strove to refer back all these manifold laws to one funda- 
mental law which he called the " reconciliation of opposites " (of rela- 
tive opposites). 

In order to arrive at a clear and comprehensive conception, where 
there is plurality and variety, we seek a point of unity, in which all 
the different parts or laws may center, and to which they may be re- 
ferred. For the undeveloped mind of tlie child this is an absolute 
necessity. The method, which is to be the rule of his activity, must 
be as simple and as single as possible. This necessity will be made 
plain when we come to the application of Frobel's theory in practice. 

Frdbel's observations of the human soul are in accord with the gen- 
eral results of modern psychology, in spite of small deviations which 
cannot be considered important. Science has not by a long way arrived 
at final conclusions on this subject, and must, therefore, give its due 
weight to every reasonable assumption; it would be most unprofitable 
to drag Frdbel's system into the judgment hall of scientific schools, in 
order to decide how far it agreed with these schools or not. Its impor- 
tance lies for the moment chiefly in its practical side. In order to pre- 
serve this part of it from becoming mechanical, and to maintain its 
vitality, its connection with the theoretical side must be imderstood 
and expounded more and more thoroughly. With the advance of sci- 
ence Frdbel's philosophy of the universe must- in course of time have 
its proper place assigned to it, and his educational system, which is 
grounded on his philosophy, will be brought into the necessary connec- 
tion with other scientific discoveries. 

The great endeavor of modern educationalists is to replace the arti- 
ficiality and restraint in which the purely conventional educational sys- 
tems of earlier times have resulted by something more corresponding 
to human nature. To this end it was necessary to go back to the 
ground motives of all education whatsoever : the laws of development 
of the human being. It was necessary at the same time to determine 
the reason of educational measures in order to elevate them into con- 



GENERAL IDEAS.— PECULIARITIES OF METHOD, 207 

scious, purposeful action. Former conventional systems of education 
worked only unconsciously, according to established custom, without 
any deep knowledge of human nature or fundamental relation to it. 

The science of humanity was then in its infancy, and, although it 
has since made great progress, the knowledge of child nature is still 
very meager. 

The services rendered by Rousseau, as the first pioneer of modern 
educational theories, and the many errors and eccentricities mixed up 
with his great truths, must here be assumed to be known.* 

Insufficiency of Pestalozzi's Doctrine of Form. 

Pestalozzi, who carried on the work in the same track, fixed the ele- 
ments of his '■'■Urform des Lehrens" in form, number, and words, as the 
fundamental conditions of human mental activity, and which can only 
be acquired and gained by observation. 

For instance, every visible and every thinkable thing has a form 
which makes it what it is. There are things of like and things of dif- 
ferent form, and there is a plurality of things which stands in opposi- 
tion to every single thing. Through the division of things arises num- 
ber, and the proportions and relations of things to one another. In 
order to express these different proportions of form and number, we 
have need of words. 

Thus in these three elements we have the most primitive facts on 
which thought is based. In every form, every number, and every wor4 
there exist two connected or united opposites. In every form, for in- 
stance, we find the two opposites, beginning and end, right and left, 
upper and under, inner and outer, and so forth. 

With regard to number, unity and plurality, as well as odd and even 
numbers, constitute opposites. Then form and number are in them- 
selves opposites, for form has to do with the whole, number with the 
separate parts. But the word by which they are described reconciles 
these opposites by comprehending them both in one expression. 

Pestalozzi has begun the work of basing instruction systematically 
on the most primitive facts and workings of the human mind. To 
carry on this work, and also to find the equally necessary basis for 
moral and practical culture, with which must be combined exercises 
for the intellectual powers before the period allotted to instruction, is 
the task that remains to be accomplished. Pestalozzi's plan and prac- 
tical methods are not altogether sufficient for the first years of life. 

It is a false use of language which sejiarates education from instruc- 
tion. The word education, in its full meaning of human culture, as a 
whole, includes instruction as a part, and comprises in itself mental, 
moral, and physical development ; but in ito narrower use it signifies, 
more especially, moral culture. 

*An elaborate exposition of Rousseau's system, principles and methods will be found 
in Barnard's Journal of Education, v. pp. 450-486; also in Barnard's Frencli Pedagogy. 



208 GENERAL IDEAS— PECULIARITIES OF METHOD. 

One of the reasons why instruction has been so much more consid- 
ered and systematized than the moral side of education is, undoubt- 
edly, that the former is in the hands of educational and school author- 
ities who possess the mental training and capacity necessary for their 
vocation. No one is allowed to be a professional teacher who has not 
proved himself to possess a certain degree of proficiency for the task. 
Moral education, on the other hand, falls to the supervision of the fam- 
ily, as the first and natural guardians of its children, and here neither 
the father nor the mother, nor any of the other sharers in the work, 
are really fitted for it ; not one of them has received a special prepara- 
tion, and it depends entirely upon the higher or lower degree of general 
culture of the parents, and their natural capacity or non-capacity for 
their educational calling, how far the moral culture of the children 
will extend. 

But over and above the preparatory training of parents and other 
natural guardians — which was already insisted on and striven after by 
Pestalozzi — moral education will only then be placed on a par with 
intellectual instruction when a real foundation has been given to it by 
the application of a fixed system of rules, such a foundation as the 
laws of thought afford for instruction. 

The human soul is one, all its powers and functions have a like aim, 

and, therefore, feeling and willing — as factors of moral life — cannot be 

developed in any other way than thought. The parts which make up 

the whole of education must be subject to the same laws as the whole, 

*and conversely the whole must be developed in like manner as the parts. 

The moral world is concerned with two aspects of things — the good 
and the beautiful — while the understanding has the discovery of truth 
for its object. 

Both the good and the beautiful have their roots in the heart or the 
feelings, and belong thus to the inner part of man — to his spiritual 
world. The power and habit of feeling rightly and beautifully consti- 
tute moral inclination, which influences the will, but does not yet nec- 
essarily lead it to action. 

In its connection with the outer world morality appears in the form 
of action. Through action, or the carrying out of the good that is 
willed, the character is formed. The practice of the beautiful, on the 
other hand, leads to art and artistic creation. 

Thus education, in its essentially moral aspect, has to do with the 
cultivation of the feelings and the will. It need hardly be said that 
the element of instruction cannot be altogether dispensed with, even 
in this department, any more than the cultivation of the intellect can 
be carried on without a certain amount of moral development. In 
earliest childhood the three different natures of the human being are 
fused in one and must be dealt with accordingly. 

The good and the beautiful, like all other qualities, are known 
through their opposites. Only by contrast with the not good, or bad, 



GENERAL IDEAS.— PECULIARITIES OF METHOD. 209 

the not beautiful, or ugly, are the good and the beautiful apprehended 
by our consciousness. 

As mental conceptions, the good and the bad, the beautiful and the 
ugly, the true and the untrue, are irreconcilable ("absolute) opposites. 
Pure thought, however, has to deal with the absolute. In all the man- 
ifestations of the actual world everything that exists is only relatively 
good and bad, ugly and beautiful, true and untrue ; all opposites exist 
here only relatively. No human being is perfectly good or perfectly 
bad, just as nobody is completely developed or completely undeveloped. 
So, too, no work of art is in an absolute sense perfectly beautiful, or 
perfectly ugly — whether as a whole or in its parts. 

As, therefore, in all and everything belonging to the human world 
opposites are found existing together, so, also, do they pass over into 
one another and are "reconciled." Thus everything is connected 
together, and constitutes an immense chain of different members. 

We do not mean to say that already in the actual world all opposites 
are reconciled, all discords solved, and the gi-eat world-harmony com- 
plete ; but it is going on to completion. This is the aim and end of all 
movements, all life, and all endeavor, and an end which is only fully 
attainable to human beings by the cessation of all self-seeking (as in 
Christ), the absorption of all individuals into humanity; and this by 
means of the highest individual development and self-existence ; not 
by transforming the individual into the universal. 

In the most fundamental bases of good and evil we find again two 
new opposites. 

In whatever form evil manifests itself, it is always at bottom self- 
seeking of some sort ; or else it is error or madness. Ambition, pride, 
avarice, envy, dishonesty, murder, hatred, etc., may always be traced 
back to self-seeking, even though it be disguised in the form of extrav- 
agant affection for others, or for one other. So, too, what we call dia- 
bolical is, in reality, self-seeking. 

And whatever shape good may take it must be essentially the expres- 
sion of love to others. A solitary individual in no way connected with 
fellow-creatures would have as little opportunity for good as tor evil. 

All the impulses and passions of a human being have for their object 
the procufance of personal happiness and well-being and the avoidance 
of personal annoyance. And as long as the happiness and well-being 
of others is not disturbed, nor the individual himself injured, there is 
nothing to be said. The conflict between good and evil begins when 
the happiness of an individual is procured at the cost of others or of 
the community. 

True goodness consists, with rare exceptions, in preferring the wel- 
fare of the many or of the whole of human society, to personal, ego- 
tistical advantage ; in striving after an ideal which, without self-sacri- 
ficing love, would be unthinkable. Love towards God, moreover, com- 
pels love towards mankind. j^ 



210 GENERAL IDEAS.-PECULIAEITIES OF METHOD, 

The moral battle-field is always between the two extremities of per- 
sonal and universal interest, and the reconciliation of the two is the 
result aimed at! There also where the battle goes on in the inner 
world of the human soul it is a question of personal against general 
interest, or of the opposition between the sensual and the spiritual nat- 
ures of the individual. The object of man's earthly existence is to 
reconcile the rights of personality, self-preservation and independence 
with the duties of necessary devotion and self-sacrifice to society. The 
personal services rendered to the whole, in any circle of life, determine 
the worth of the individual to society, and moral greatness consists in 
the love which, going out beyond the personal, seeks to embrace the 
whole of God's world — and therewith God himself. For God has 
herein placed the destiny of man, viz., to expand from the circle of in- 
dividual existence, through all intermediate circles, to the great circle 
of humanity. 

In the world of the beautiful we meet with the same law, viz., " the 
reconciliation of opposites." 

What do we mean by the beautiful ? That which is harmonious or 
rhythmical. Harmony is the co-operation of all the parts of a whole 
towards the object of the whole. If the innermost nature of beauty 
bafiles our attempts at full definition, harmony is, nevertheless, its fun- 
damental condition. 

But a necessary condition of harmony is the balance of parts tending 
in opposite directions. 

Beauty of form (plastic art) depends on the opposites, height and 
breadth, for instance, being rightly proportioned or balanced ; on the 
contrasting horizontal and perpendicular lines being kept in balance 
by their connecting lines. In the circle we have the perfect balance of 
all opposite parts, and the circular line is, therefore, the line of beauty. 
In architecture the triangle is the fundamental shape — that is to say, 
two lines starting from one point and running in opposite directions 
are connected together by a third line. And so forth. 

Beauty in the world of color is the harmonious blending together of 
the opposites, light and shade, by means of the scale of color — this at 
least is the primary condition. The mixing of colors, too, consists in 
the right fusion of the elementary colors — red, blue, yellow, which in 
themselves form opposites. 

In the world of sound beauty is in like manner conditioned by the 
harmony of single tones amongst each other. The basis of musical har- 
mony is the simple chord, i. e., the opposites, which the key-note and 
the fifth constitute, are reconciled by the third. 

In poetry rhythm is obtained by the regular connection of long and 
short syllables. And so forth. 

The ugly, the imperfect, in all arts, is on the other hand the inhar- 
monious — or the result of want of proportion and correspondence in 
opposites — or the absence of transitions to connect them together. 



GENERAL IDEAS.— PECULIARITIES OF METHOD, 211 

And we come again across these same laws, which we have summed 
up as the basis of thouglit, in the moral world also, as well in that side 
of it which is known as " the good " (ethics), as in that which is called 
** the beautiful " (esthetics). 

Law of Balance — Universal and Beneficial. 

Whether this universal principle (Welt ge.ietz — world law, as Frobel 
calls it) be formulated as " the reconciliation of opposites " or in any 
other way, is here, as has been already said, of little importance. The 
most comprehensive formula would perhaps be kuo of balance. 

Science expresses itself very differently in this matter. Newton calls 
the law in question the " law of gravitation " (the connection of attrac- 
tion and repulsion). Naturalists designate it as the law of "universal 
exchange of matter " (giving out and taking in, connected by assimu- 
lation), etc. 

This law, in which Frobel sees the foundation of all development, 
and, therefore, also of human development — it is his desire to establish 
and apply as the " universal law of education." It is with the applica- 
tion of the law, which will be demonstrated in the practices of his 
Kindergarten method, that we are chiefly concerned here, but in order 
to a clear understanding of this the foregoing introduction was indis- 
pensable. Not till one all-prevading principle of development, which 
sliall comprise in itself every variety of law, has been discovered and 
applied to practical education in its minutest detail will there be any- 
thing approaching to a veritable and complete method. It remains, 
therefore, now to prove that this principle of Frobel's is identical in 
the spiritual and material -world, and, if this be established, the con- 
nection or unity of all law will follow of itself. 

Frobel has over and over again told us how deeply his whole develop- 
ment was influenced by the fact that from his earliest childhood he was 
out of harmony with his immediate surroundings. The early death of 
his mother, the unloving treatment of his step-mother, and the small 
amount of attention and sympathy bestowed on him by his father, 
partly owing to the professional duties of the latter, which left him 
little time, and partly to an uncommunicative and somewhat stern nat- 
ure, deprived the child of fostering love in the morning of his life, and 
initiated him early into the borrows of existence. 

■Frobel's Personal Experience. 
The yearning of his soul for love, the thirst of his mind for knowl- 
edge, were never really satisfied, and he was forever finding himself 
driven back anew on the inmost depths of his nature, left to stand by 
himself alone. Up to the years of early manhosd the gulf between his 
outer surroundings and his inner world became greater and greater, 
and his young spirit suffered deeply in consequence. The pain that he 
experienced incited him to search out the cause of it, and this he found 
in the sharp contrast that existed between his inner and his outer world. 



212 GENERAL IDEAS.— PECULIARITIES OF METHOD. 

This discovery of "opposites," tbis want of the concord and harmony 
that his whole soul was unconsciously yearning after, forms the first 
great and lasting impression of his life. The feelings which met with 
no response in the world of humanity, all the -warmth and ardor of his 
soul, now turned to the world of nature. In the contemplation of this 
W'orld, in devotion to its invisible spu-it, in which he soon learned to 
recognize the Divine Spirit, he found the consolation, and ^Iso in part 
the instruction which had been denied him by his human surroundings. 

Already as a boy he would lose himself in profound meditation on 
the laws of the universe, on the cause of organic life in nature. 

" From star-shaped blossoms," he says, " I first learned to understand 
the law of all formation, and it is no other than the ' reconciliation of 
opposites.' " 

For instance : Each of the petals which form the corolla round the 
calyx of the flower has another petal opposite it, and between these op- 
posite petals there are others which connect them together. 

" A humble little flower taught me dimly to suspect the secrets of 
existence, the mysterious laws of development, which I afterwards 
learned clearly," so writes Frobel. 

Continuing his observations, he perceived that every single petal is 
in itself a whole leaf, or a whole, but at the same time only a part of 
the whole of the floral star. Thus a whole and a part at the same time, 
or a glied gauzes, as Frobel expresses it. Then again, the flower is a 
whole in itself, but also only a part of the whole plant. The plant is 
a whole, and at the same time a part of the plant family to which it be- 
longs, and this again is a part of the genus. In such manner did the 
child Frobel perceive the membership in all natural objects, and he re- 
marked 3,t the same time how one part is always sub-related or super- 
related or co-related to another ; the flower is super-related to the root, 
the root is sub-related to the flower, the petals are co-related to each other. 

These divisions into members, which are found in all organic and 
systematic formations, are now taught to children at school by means 
of books ; it is a question, however, whether in this way they can grasp 
them as easily and understand them as clearly as did the child Frobel, 
through his own observation. The first apprehension of things comes 
long before school instruction, and what is taught with words must be 
based on that which has been taken in through the senses. If this first 
apprehension through observation is wanting, the foundation for the 
understanding of what is taught will also be wanting, 

In the progressive course of his childish observations, Frobel further 
remarked that it is not only in individual organisms that the different 
parts, by means of connecting transitions (or the reconciliation of oppo- 
sites) make up the harmony of the whole, but that also between all and 
the most different organisms there are everywhere to be found like 
points of transition, which connect together the most opposite things 
by a series of intermediate points growing more and more similar. 



GENERAL IDEAS.— PECULIARITIES OF METHOD. 213 

Thus through a countless series of intermediate plants he saw grasses 
connected with trees. The connection in the vegetable kingdom be- 
came apparent to him through the fact that all plants, how great soever 
their differences, have something in common ; all have roots, stems, 
leaves, crowns, stamens, etc., the characteristics of the vegetable world. 
Thus unity in spite of infinite variety. 

But it was not in the vegetable world alone that organic life mani- 
fested itself to him as the result of systematic working, of division into 
parts, of a series of events, of sub and super ordination, of connection 
through transitions, of variety in similarity, in short, of harmony and 
concord accomplished through the reconciliation of opposites ; he saw 
the self-same truth pei'vading other kingdoms of nature. In the organ- 
ism of animal bodies, indeed, in the whole animal kingdom, he found 
his law at work again. 

As the sap of plants ascends and descends from the I'oot to the crown, 
and conversely, and through this movement connects together the op- 
posite forces, expansion and contraction through which the leaf-buds 
are formed in the stem, so is the circulation of blood in the animal 
body. The blood streams out from the heart, and back to it again by 
opposite movements; the lungs expand and contract together in the 
process of breathing, etc. As the corresponding petals of a flower 
stand opposite one another, so do the limbs of animal bodies ; the cor- 
responding feet, hands, ears, or eyes, are placed opposite to one another. 
Frobel calls this entgegengesetztgleiche (like things set opposite to each 
other), and he finds analogous occurrences in the spiritual world. 

And furthej', he perceives that not only throughout each of the three 
kingdoms of nature — the inorganic mineral kingdom not excepted — 
there exist common characteristics by which the members of the sep- 
arate kingdoms are united, but that these three kingdoms, taken as 
wholes, have points of similarity through which they pass over into one 
another, and are connected together. He saw that the vegetable world 
is fed by the mineral world, which is contained both in the bosom of 
the earth and in the atmosphere ; that the vegetable and mineral worlds 
together feed the animal world, which also feeds upon itself ; and that 
man, by the food he eats, by the air he breathes in, etc., lives on all the 
three kingdoms of nature, and is thus united and connected with them. 

Here, too, in the chemical process of fusion, which is known as " inter- 
change of matter," he found his favorite law again. For this process of 
interchange goes on as follows : — Every organism takes or sucks in 
nourishment, air, etc., and then gives out again part of what it has 
taken in. Here, therefore, we have the opposites, taking in and giving 
out. The reconciliation of these opposites is accomplished by appro- 
priation or assimulation, for every organic body converts a portion of 
what it has taken in in the shape of food, air etc., into flesh and 
blood ; and thus there is a constant mutual exchange of substance go- 
ing on between all organisms. And this process of exchange, by which 



214 GENEEAL IDEAS.— PECULIARITIES OF METHOD. 

everything that exists is connected together organically and materially, 
is not thinkable without the adjusting of opposites, or, as Frbbel calls 
it, " the reconciliation of opposites." 

But this was not all. Besides the continuous connection, the unity 
■which he discovered to exist in everything on earth, from the lowest to 
the highest, from the nearest object to the most distant, the same truth 
was borne in upon him concerning the solar system. There was not 
the tiniest herb on earth that did not drink in and feed on the sunlight. 
Without the continuous action of the sun's rays on all that exists on 
earth, all life must perish ; the earth would be a dead body without the 
light and warmth of the svm. And as everything on om- earth is kept 
alive by the action of the sun, so is it with all the heavenly bodies on 
which the sun shines, every single planet of our solar system. 

And further still, our solar system itself is not isolated, alone and un- 
connected with the other solar systems of the universe. Arguing from 
the known (or that which was nearest to him) to the unknown (or 
that which was furthest), from the visible to the invisible, Frbbel con- 
cluded that the law of membership, which he had found to exist in the 
least as well as the greatest organisms, and in all organisms on the earth, 
must in a like or analogous manner pervade the whole universe. 

The works of a Creator must be in connection one with another, and 
all, without exception, bear the stamp of their Creator. Not necessarily 
in exactly the same degree, but in gradations from lowest to highest, 
and not in outward appearance either, but by one and the same system 
of law, according to which each and all are developed, must this stamp 
of God show itself. 

" There is but one fundamental law of the universe out of which all 
other laws in the world of outward phenomena spring," Thus did A. 
von Humboldt also express the truth which is the fundamental thought 
on which Frbbel's method of observation rests.* 

Frbbel has certainly about as good a right to argue from the visible 
and known things of earth to the invisible unknown things of the 
universe, as has the naturalist from a given vertebrae to undertake to 
construct the whole organism of an animal. In a letter to his elder 
brother,! written in his twenty-fifth year, Frbbel sketches out a plan 
for his future life. A passage in this letter, alluding to his childhood 
and early youth, plainly shows how from his childhood up he busied 
himself with the attempt to reconcile the workings of nature with his 
own inner world, and to find the points of unity between the two. To 
understand the connection of all phenomena of the outward world, and 
the way in which these harmonized with the spiritual world, was his 
constant endeavor. 

Speaking of things in Nature, he says : — " I felt that something 

* Frobel searched after and discovered the " unity of all development," a theory 
which is universally occupying modern scientific enquiry, 
t In vol. I. of " Frobel's Schriften," edited by "W. Lange. 



GENERAL IDEAS— PECULIARITIES OF METHOD. 215 

simple informed them all, that they all had their origin from something 
which was one, the same, identical ; that they must all unite together 
in some one point ; for they all existed collectively in Nature ! My own 
inner world was inspired by one thought, one idea — the suspicion of 
something liigher in man than humanity, of a higher end than this life. 
By means of this continual searching and finding in the depths of my 
inner being, this constant going down into self, I soon discovered that 
a better knowledge of myself helped me better to understand the outer 
world. I was driven to explore my little inner world, that through it I 
might learn to know the great outer world surrounding me. I learned 
from the teacher experience, without suspecting, without even knowing 
clearly, what I was learning. In this way I arrived at an ideal knowl- 
edge of myself, of the world, and of humanity, such as few men possess 
in youth. For every fresh discovery that I made in the outward world 
I felt always compelled to find a corresponding point in myself, to which 
I couid fasten it," etc. 

Frobel was then seeking for what he later designated by the expres- 
sion Lebenseinigung (unity of life). In the life of the human soul he 
saw a repetition of the continual adjustment of opposites, which went 
on in the life of nature. As the opposites of day and night were con- 
nected by twilight, of summer and winter by spring and autumn, so in 
the human soul do the day and night of conscious and unconscious life, 
the light and darkness of good and evil, alternate with one another. 
So, too, activity and rest, happiness and sorrow, etc. 

As the buds which burst open in the spring have developed out of the 
invisible germ hidden under the hard crust of winter, so do the oppo- 
sites, life and death, alternate. And these are only seemingly irrecon- 
cilable opposites. All earthly life contains within itself the germ of 
death (of future change), all death carries new life within it. " How 
can any one," Frobel exclaims, " believe in real death, in annihilation? 
Nothing dies ; everything only becomes changed in order to pass into a 
new and higher life. This is true of every little herb, for its essential 
inherent qualities are indestructible. Everything retains in each of its 
parts the individual character assigned to it, i. e., its essence, to all 
eternity. How, then, should the most marked characteristic of a human 
being, the consciousness of his own individual personality, be lost, even 
though he should pass through millions of new existences ? What you 
people call death is nowhere to be found in creation, but only expan- 
sion, life ascending higher and higher, always nearer to God. If you 
only knew how to read the book of nature rightly you would find every- 
where in it the confirmation of the revelation of the soul's immortality. 
Throughout the whole of nature there is nothing but continually 
repeated resurrection ! . . . The universal and the individual are 
opposites, which presuppose one another. Without individual human 
beings there would be no humanity, and without humanity there would 
be no individuals. The race only continues because the personal units 



216 GENERAL IDEAS.— PECULIARITIES OP METHOD. 

continue. Humanity comprises not only mankind of to-day, but man- 
kind of the past and of the future ; all the human beings that have ever 
existed on earth make up humanity, and humanity presupposes con- 
scious existence, both general and personal." 

The above quotations from Frbbel's own words will be sufficient proof 
that his theoi-y of the unity of life (^Lehenseinigunfj) did not, as has been 
asserted, rest on a pantheistic conception of the universe. The im- 
mense unbroken whole of the universe comprises, according to him, 
God, nature, and man' as an insepai-ably connected whole, though not 
as finished and at rest, but on the contrary, in a state of eternal " be- 
coming " — of having become and being about to become, at the same 
time. He had always in view the progressive development of all things 
— that is to say, the continual movement of forces ; he saw nowhere 
repose — or at any rate only passing repose — never lasting completion, 
for every apparently finished form of development was always succeeded 
by a new one. 

In his " Menschen-Erziehung " (Human Education), he says, for in- 
stance : " The theory which regards development as capable of standing 
still and being finished, or only repeating itself in greater universality, 

is, beyond all expression, a degrading one, etc Neither man nor 

mankind should be regarded as an already finished, perfected, stereo- 
typed being ; but as everlastingly growing, developing, living ; moving 

onwards to the goal which is hidden in eternity Man, although 

in the closest connection with God and natm-e, stands, nevertheless, as 
a person in the relation of an opposite to nature (or plurality) and to 
God (or unity). (Nature and God are opposites in their character of 
plurality and unity.) Man (as humanity) is the representative of the law 
of reconciliation, for he stands in the universe as the connecting link 
between God and creation." (For unconscious existence and absolute 
conscious existence are connected by personal, or limited conscious 
existence.) 

" As the branch is a member of the tree, and at the same time a 
whole, so is the individual man a member of humanity, and therefore 
a member of a whole. But each one is a member in an entirely special 
individual, personal manner ; the destiny of humanity — that is ' to be a 
child of God ' — manifests itself differently in each individual. 

" One and the same law rules throughout everything, but expresses 
itself outwardly (in the physical world), and inwardly (in the si^iritual 
world), in endless different forms." 

" At the bottom of this all-pervading law there must, of necessity, lie 
an all-working unity, conscious of its existence, and therefore existing 
eternally." 

" This unity is God." 

" God manifests himseK as life in nature, in the universe ; as love in 
humanity ; and as light (wisdom). He makes himself known to the 
soul As life, love, and light does the nature of man also mani- 
fest itself. 



GENERAL IDEAS— PECULIARITIES OF METHOD. 217 

" As the child of nature, man is an imprisoned, fettered being, with- 
out self-mastery, under the dominion of his passions. As the child of 
God he becomes a free agent, destined to self-mastery, of his own free 
will a hearing, conforming spiritual being. As the child of humanity, 
he is a being struggling out of his fettered condition into freedom, out 
of isolation into union, yearning for love and existing to find it. 

" The unity in the nature of all things is the in-dwelling spirit of 
their Creator, ' the mind of God ' which expresses itself as law." .... 
The destiny of man as a child of God and of nature is to represent the 
being of God and of nature : as the destiny of a child, as the member of 
a family, is to represent the nature of the family, its mental and 
spiritual capabilities, so the vocation of man, as a member of humanity, 
is to represent and to cultivate the nature, the powers, and faculties of 
humanity. 

Frbbel defines life, in whatever form it may express itself, as progres- 
sive development from lower to higher gi-ades, from unconscious exist- 
ence to a conscious existence, which ascends higher and higher till it 
reaches the consciousness of God. But all development is movement. 
It ascends from beneath to above, from lesser to greater, from the germ 
to its completion. It is also, at the same time, a constant means of 
reconciliation of opposites, and itself a product of that universal law, 
which we have just acknowledged as the law of human thought, the 
law of moral life, and the law of the physical or organic world. Move- 
ment, whether free or compulsory movement, which has an object, is 
activity. 

From which it follows that the law of the reconciliation of opposites 
is also the law of all activity, of all human action, and all human 
development which is based on activity and is the result of it. And 
how could it be otherwise ? Human beings belong, on their physical side 
also, to nature ; the whole process of their physical life is an interchange 
with the products of nature ; therefore man, as a physical being, is sub- 
ject to the laws of nature. But the soul is inseparable from the body, 
and can only express itself and act through the bodily organs. It fol- 
lows, therefore that the soul cannot be subject to conditions opposed to 
the bodily ones, but must obey laws analogous to those which govern 
the other organisms of the universe, though of a higher order than the 
laws of unconscious life. 

Every utterance or manifestation of the human spirit necessitates 
action of the senses ; and we know that such action is based on law, 
and, moreover, on the same law which governs all action in the 
universe : the reconciliation, connection, or adjustment of opposites. 

If, then, the full development of human nature rests on this universal 
law of activity there can be no other rule for the guidance of this 
development in childhood and youth, or, in one word, for education. 
Nature follows this law in her dealings with children, and if education 
is to be in accordance with nature it must do the same ; and then only 



218 GENEEAL IDEAS.— PECULIAMTIES OP METHOD. 

when this fundamental principle is recognized and followed, and applied 
in the development of human nature, with full understanding of its aim 
aud object, will education be raised to the level of art or science. 

Frobel is the first person who has hitherto fully recognized this prin- 
ciple and rendered its application possible, and his educational method 
is nothing more or less than constant obedience to it at every stage of 
the pupil's development. Which means to say that all the free spon- 
taneous activity of children is systematically regulated in the same 
manner as the whole natural world unconsciously is, and as the world 
of human nature would always be also were it not for the disturbing 
element of consciousness which awakens the personal will, and incites 
it to arbitrary action (i. e., free choice without regard to right or wrong), 
thus coming in contact with the laws of nature and hindering the* 
direct accomplishment of her purpose. 

But there can be no real freedom in human action, unless it follows 
in the path, recognizes the limits, and subjects itself to the necessity of 
Law. The treatment of matter, substances, the physical in short, 
which is the point of departure of all human thought and action, can 
only accomplish the desired end when it is carried on according to 
systematic rules. Arbitrary capricious action never reaches its end, or 
only by accident. 

Thus, then, Frbbel's system consists in regulating the natural spon- 
taneous activity of the child according to its own inherent law, in order 
that the purpose of nature, the complete development of all the natural 
faculties, may be fulfilled. 

Tills system aims at teaching the child from the beginning of its 
existence to apply for itself the universal principle which we have been 
considering. 

The order of the children's performances is so planned, that the 
application of this principle becomes continually wider, and by this 
means there is gradually awakened in the children the consciousness 
that all systematic working is based on it. 

Tlie above indications will, we hope, be sufficient, so far, to explain 
Frobel's theory of the universe as is necessary to show its connection 
with his system of education. A full exposition of his philosophy is 
not contemplated here. 

A true understanding of these generalities can only be arrived at 
through their practical application, and the knowledge of their results. 
And conversely the practical application only gains meaning through 
knowledge of the fundamental idea. 

The reason why Frobel was so much condemned and run down, and 
even derided, during his lifetime, is that his ideas, owing tq their 
novelty and apparent opposition to old-established methods, met, of 
necessity, with little comprehension. 

Frobel's philosophy and educational theories have certainly their 
"mystic " side, inasmuch as they are not at once apprehensible to every 
one, aud in their entire scope. 



FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL VIEWS. 219 



VI. THE KIXDERGARTEIT. 



Frederic Froebel bas succeeded in realizing what the educational 
geniuses who preceded him only strove after. But he has done more 
than simply embody their ideas in reality — whereas they concerned 
themselves only with methods of instruction, he has given to the world 
a true and complete method of education. 

Frobel gives to children experience instead of instruction, he puts 
action in the place of abstract learning. In the Kindergarten the child 
finds itself surrounded by a miniature world adapted to its require- 
ments at different stages of growth, and through action in which it can 
develop itself according to the laws of its nature. 

Let us first glance at the Kindergarten from outside, as it strikes the 
eye of the casual looker on, before we proceed to a comprehensive sum- 
mary of Frobel's educational system as a whole. 

The pleasant sound of children's voices singing falls on the ear of 
the visitor as he enters the Kindergarten, and in an open-air space 
shaded with trees (or in a large heated room in winter) he sees a ring 
of little children from two to four or five years old, led by the Kinder- 
garten teacher, and moving in rhythmic measures round one of their 
little comrades who is going through an energetic course of gymnastic 
exercises, which the others imitate : after a time the young instructor 
is relieved by another of the children, and so on. To the gymnastic 
exercises succeed other (Beweffungftspiel'') movement games representing 
incidents of husbandry and harvesting ; or the way in which birds 
build their nests in woods, fly out and return home again, or phases of 
professional life, scenes from the market, and the shop, and so forth. 
All the games are accompanied by explanatory songs. 

In the first period of childhood words and actions must always accom- 
pany each other ; the child's nature requires this. Body and mind must 
not yet be occupied separately, but the gymnastics of the limbs should 
at the same time exercise the mental powers and dispositions. Frobel's 
" movement games " develop the limbs and muscles, while the accom- 
panying music works on the feelings and imagination, and the words 
and action rouse the mind to observation, and finally the will to imita- 
tion of what has been observed. The promotion of physical health and 
strength is the main object of education in the Kindergarten. 

A little further on in the garden, rmder a linen awning, will be seen 
three tables surrounded by benches with leaning backs, at each of which 
are seated ten children from four to seven years of age, working away 
busily and attentively. At one of the tables strips of different colored 
papers, sti-aw or leather, are being plaited into all sorts of pretty pat- 
terns, to make letter-cases, mats, baskets, boxes, etc. The patterns of 
the elder children are of their own invention, and their little produc- 
tions are destined for presents to parents, brothers and sisters, and friends. 



220 



THE KINDERGARTEN. 



At the second table building with cubes has been going on. Before 
each child stands an architectural structure of its own planning, and 
all are listening attentively to the narrative of the teacher, in which 
each of the objects built up is made to play a part. 

At the third table paper is being folded into all sorts of shapes, rep- 
resenting tools of different kinds, or flowers. All the various forms 
which the children produce are arrived at by gradual transitions from 
one fundamental mathematical form, and thus the elements of geometry 
are acquired in the Kindergarten, not through abstract instruction, but 
by observation and original construction. 

In playful work and workful play the child finds a relief for, and the 
satisfaction of, his active impulses and receives an elementary ground- 
ing for all later work, whether artistic or professional. His physical 
senses as well as his mental faculties are all exercised in proportion to 
his age. 

But the half-hour is at an end, and there must be no more sitting 
still. Spades, rakes, and watering-pots are now brought out to work in 
the flower-beds, of which each child has one for its own. Flowers, vege- 
tables and fruits are cultivated by the children in these little patches 
of ground, but in the general garden, which is the common charge of 
all the children, are grown all sorts of corn, field-products, and useful 
plants, and these serve as materials for an elementary course of botan- 
ical observation and experiment, when the children cannot be taken 
into the open fields and woods to study nature in her own workshops, 
to learn singing from the birds, and to watch the habits of the insects. 
In this garden, too, all kinds of animals are kept; chickens, doves, rab- 
bits, hares, dogs, goats, and birds in cages, which have to be looked after 
and cared for. 

Thus the child grows up under the influences of nature. He learns 
gradually to perceive the regularity of all organic formations ; by the 
loving care which he is encouraged to bestow on animals and plants, 
his heart and sympathies are enlarged, and he becomes capable of love 
and sympathy for his fellow creatures ; and in imitating the works of 
nature he is led to discover and to love the Creator of nature, and to 
acknowledge Him as his own Creator also, and he becomes imbued 
with the divine peace of nature before the turmoil of the world and of 
sin find their way into his heart. 

But to return to the Kindergarten. The little ones whom we first 
saw engaged in gymnastics now come running and laughing up to the 
table deserted by the elder children, and in their turn take their seats 
for half an hour's work (for the quite little ones the time is limited to a 
quarter of an hour), and begin laying together and interlacing little 
laths or sticks in symmetrical shapes. " Forms of beauty," or syste- 
matic constructions without any special object ; " forms of knowledge," 
or mathematical figures ; " forms of practical life," or tools, buildings, 
etc. ; or else one of the many occupations of which the results may be 



THE KINDERGARTEN. ^21 

seen in the glass cupboard of the play-room, is carried on. In this cup- 
board are a variety of articles modeled in clay, lace-like arabesques cut 
out of fine white paper and pasted on blue paper ; ingenious devices of 
plaited straw, riband, and leather ; all manner of drawings and paint- 
ings, too, according to Frobel's new linear method ; artistic little houses, 
churches, furniture, etc., constructed of little sticks fastened together 
by means of moistened peas, into which the ends of the sticks are stuck ; 
in short, an art and industrial exhibition of the works of little manu- 
facturers under eight years old. 

But these pretty things are not all intended for birthday or Christmas 
presents in the children's families. At the end of the year most of them 
are put into a lottery through which each of the children receives a lit- 
tle sum of money for its own work, and the joint proceeds are spent in 
dressing a Christmas tree for the poor children of the neighborhood, 
and the pleasure which the little donors derive from this tree is far 
greater than that which their own more costly one affords them. 

By the side of the glass cupboard, in which the children's productions 
are kept, stands another containing dried plants, mosses, insects, shells, 
stones, crystals, and other wonders of nature, which have either been 
collected on different excursions, or are presents from relations and 
friends. This is the children's museum, and into it the little collectors 
often carry the commonest stones and weeds, for to children everything 
that they notice for the first time seems wonderful. 

Work, which is at the same time fulfillment of duty, is the only true 
basis of moral culture, but it is necessary that such work should also 
satisfy the child's instinct of love, and the object of it must, therefore, 
be to give pleasure toothers. With this end in view diSiculties will 
be overcome with courage and cheerfulness, and the only effectual bar- 
rier will thus be opposed to selfishness. Only let children's earliest 
work and duties be made easy to them and they will infallibly learn to 
love them, and in later years they will not shrink from the sacrifices 
demanded by love. A true system of national education, such as the 
reforms of modern times render necessary, (fan only be established by 
making work, such work as shall connect artistic dexterity with the cul- 
tivation of intelligence, the basis of education. The Kindergarten 
meets this want during the period of early childhood ; the Jugend, or 
Scliulgnrten* (Youth, or school-garden) with workshop, studio, camp, 
gymnastics, etc., must carry on the work afterwards on the same foun- 
dation. 

And now the working hours are ended, and a choral melody resounds 
in our Kindergarten. The little ones with their teacher and her assist- 
antsf form into a circle and sing with childish reverence a short song, 



*See " Die Arbeit und die neue Erziehung." Second edition, published by 6. "Wigand 
of Kasset. 

tToung girls who help in the work of teaching, and are thus trained to be themselves 
Kindergarten teachers. 



222 



THE KINDERGARTEN. 



the words of which express gratitude to God for the blessings enjoyed, 
and a promise to live according to His will and that of their parents. 
The Kindergarten always opens and closes in this way with religious 
worship. 

The work of religious development must begin by directing the 
child's imagination towards higher things, and there is no better means 
to this end than sacred song which arouses the devotional instincts. 
The influence of nature, in which the spirit of God breathes, combines 
with the sacred melodies to awaken in the mind its first dim perception 
of the organic connection of the universe, which has its ultimate origin 
in God. 

Through association with its fellows, i. e., with other children of its 
own age, the child learns to love beyond the narrow range of self; and 
the love of human beings leads to the love of God. Beligion means 
binding together, union (between God and man), and without loving 
fellowship religion cannot 'exist. Frbbel defines religion as " union 
with God," wliich can only grow out of union with mankind, or the 
love of human beings for one another. 

To the above influence is added religious narrative, which in the 
case of the younger children is connected with facts experienced by them- 
selves, and for the elder ones refers to Bible history. 

Four hours of the day thus pass quickly by for the little people, and 
then they hurry off to join the fathers, mothers or nurses, who have 
come to fetch them, delighted at seeing them again, and eager to tell of 
all the pleasures and labors of the day, and to carry on by themselves 
ai home the arts they have learned — and there is never any room for 
the disagreeable guest, ennui 

Such is more or less what the visitor to a Kindergarten will see going 
on, and he will very likely think to himself, " This is all very nice and 
delightful, the children must certainly flourish better here, both physi- 
cally and mentally, than in the close atmosphere of rooms, under the 
supei-vision of nurses and nursemaids (by whom the mother must at 
any rate be relieved during some hours of the day), or else left entirely 
without supervision. It is also better than the formal out door walks 
in which children are generally led stifliy by the hand, instead of being 
allowed to run and jump about freely. Certainly these Kindergartens 
must be a great benefit to children, but do they deserve all the fuss 
that is made about them, all the expectations founded on them ? And, 
even if a salutary reform has been effected in school education during 
its earliest stages, what has been done for the improvement of educa- 
tion in the home, which must always form the starting point, the ker- 
nel, of all human culture?" 

No, the Kindergarten is not all that is wanted, and Frbbel has not 
forgotten the important share which a family, above all the mother, 
has in the work of education. The cultivation of the female sex, 
through which the spiritual mother of humanity, its educator in the 



THE KINDERGARTEN. 



223 



highest sense of the word, is to be realized, is essentially the starting- 
point of his educational method. The Kindergarten begins on the 
mother's lap. It is to the mother that Frobel presents his '* play- 
gifts;" on her preparatory training does the efficacy of the system 
depend ; by her frequent presence at the Kindergarten it is hopt^d that 
she will take a personal part in the proceedings, and during the greater 
part of the day, when the child falls to her charge, she can herself 
guide its occupations on the same plan. All mothers will one daj^, we 
hope, be equal to this task. We look forward to a time when Fiobel's 
method shall be taught in all girls' schools, and when it will have 
become universally acknowedged that all who have to do with children, 
fathers and mothers, nurses and governesses, should be versed in the 
science of educatioii, in order that they may be able to satisfy the 
higher demands of the present stage of human culture. 

Frobel's general principles of education may be summed up under 
the three following heads : " freedom for development," " work for de- 
velopment," and " unity of development." 

1. In nature, where everything works freely, unrestrainedly and un- 
artificially, there is scope for freedom of development. Freedom of 
growth among plants is only possible where this systematic develop- 
ment is not disturbed, and the necessary conditions of their growth are 
attended to. If they are to attain to full development, they must have 
proper care and attention. Plants shut up in dark cellars degenerate 
and die, and human nature, which lacks care and attention, especially 
in its earliest stages, degenerates and dies also. Children, if brought up 
among the wild animals of a forest, would become themselves almost 
animals, and bear scarcely any resemblance to human beings. It is 
only by applying the eternal principles of all organic development in 
the higher scale of human nature, that the clue will be found to free- 
dom of development in the human being, as Frobel understands it. 
Only there, where order and morality reign, where love and discipline 
are the guiding powers, can there be any question of freedom of devel- 
opment for the human soul. A wild up-shooting of untrained natural 
forces, the unfolding of the young human plant given over to chance, 
these are the very opposites of free development. Whatever also is 
contrary to Nature's laws for man hinders his development. His des- 
tiny, which is to become a morally reasonable being, makes a moi-ally 
reasonable education indispensable. Development is emancipation : 
emancipation from the bands of rude unspiritualized matter ; emanci- 
pation of the limbs and senses, of all the mental powers and faculties 

■ — this is it that makes freedom. But freedom of development is not 
sufficient without exercises for development. 

2. Frobel says : " Man is destined to rise out of himself by means 
of his own activity, to attain to a continually higher stage of self- 
knowledge." Thus it is only through its own exertions, its own work, 
through personal action, that the child can so develop itself, in accord- 



224 



THE KINDERGARTEN. 



ance with its human nature, as to realize its true self, to express, as it 
were, the thuught of God which dwells in every being. According to 
Frobel, man is born into the world more weak and helpless than any- 
animal, in order that, by the resistance which the things of the out- 
ward world oppose to his weakness, he may be incited to the exertion 
of inward strength. A child cannot learn to walk without trouble and 
effort ; and it is only after thousands of times repeated attempts that 
it learns to make itself understood, that is to say, to talk. 

But if the child's efforts and exertions be left to themselves, they 
will fall very far short of their natural end, and, therefore, education 
must come to their assistance and guidance, and establish discipline 
and control where otherwise caprice would step in, and confusion of 
ungovei-ned forces reign. There is, however, a kind of discipline which 
is contrary to nature, as well as one in accordance with it, and this un- 
natural discipline leads to artificiality, and the suppression of individ- 
ual personality, which, indeed, it rather aims at doing away with and 
replacing by something conventional. 

What may be called new in Frobel's Kindergarten plan is the practi- 
cal means which he has discovered and applied for disciplining and 
developing body, soul, and mind, will, feelings, and understanding, in 
accordance with the laws of Nature. All the materials which he sets 
before children, all their playthings, are so contrived as to meet their 
innate impulse to activity, and that in a rightly ordered sequence cor- 
responding to every stage of the soul's progressive development. The 
child is thus led on by easy simple stages to modeling, production, and 
creation. Only by original creation can it fully express its inner self, 
its individual being; and this it must do if it is to attain to worthy 
existence. 

Action, i. e., the application of knowledge, the carrying out of ideas, 
is what our age calls for more and more loudly, and what the young 
generation must be trained for ; and in view of this Frobel would have 
children learn even in their earliest games to act and to create ; he 
would have work and action precede abstract study, and be made the 
means and educator to prepare for the later acquisition of knowledge. 
In order to produce strength and greatness of character (and what is 
more needed at the present time?), it is necessary to awaken will and 
energy, resolution and a sense of duty; this is done in the Kinder- 
garten by means of personal activity in an atmosphere of happiness 
and contentment. To train pupils in the great workshops of the Cre- 
ator to be themselves one day creators, to bring human beings nearer 
and nearer to the likeness of God, this is the purpose of the " Devel- 
opment exercises," which are carried on in the Kindergarten. 

3. All organic development is continuous, unbroken, and, progress- 
ing from stage to stage, forms a closely interconnected whole. In Nat- 
ure this continuity, or connectedness, exists unconsciously, but in the 
world of human life it must be the result of deliberate conscious voli- 



THE KINDEEGAP.TEN. 225 

tion, and must lead up to the apprehension of the highest cosmic unity, 
i. e., to the knowledge of God. 

Education to be worthy of a human being must, therefore, be contin- 
uous, must proceed upon the same plan from the beginning, though in 
a progressive sequence, according to the natural stages of development. 
The first playthings must stand in proper social relation to the last, the 
first elementary lessons must be in connection with the topmost pin- 
nacle of later knowledge; the moral culture especially depends on har- 
mony in the whole treatment of the child. / Human existence begins 
in unconsciousness, and has to pass through all the successive stages of 
growing consciousness, until it reaches complete self-knowledge. Frb- 
bel says : " The clearer the thread which runs through our lives back- 
wai'd — back to our childhood — the clearer will be our onward glance to 
the goal." 

Such continuity in education is as yet nowhere aimed at; fathers 
and mothers, nurses and governesses, servants and friends, all influence 
the child in different, too often in quite opposite, directions. There is 
no such thing as transition in education — no point of connection be- 
tween tlie first period, which is the sport of caprice and chance, and the 
following lesson — and school-time, between the first years of mere idle 
amusement, and the beginnings of practical activity and exercise of 
duty; nowhere, in short, is continuity in the lessons, occupations, and 
lives of children so much as thought of. 

The relations of the human being to the surrounding world, to 
Nature and his fellow-creatures — with which latter relations is bound 
up the highest of all, that of the creature to its Creator — begin with 
his birth. The most important relation at the commencement of life is 
that between child and mother, and it is in the mother's hand accord- 
ingly that Frobel places the first end of the Ariadne thread, which is to 
lead the child through the labyrinth of life. The mother's play and 
caresses (i^ce Frobel's Mutter tin Koselieder) form the first foundation on 
which the Kindergarten and the after-training of school and life 
are built up. The logical continuity, the strict order of sequence in its 
games and occujiations, which hang together like the links of a chain, 
so that the one always prepares for the other ; the unbroken series of 
transitions ; the close connection between childish conceptions and 
ideas and their realization — all this can only be fully appreciated after 
a close study of the details, both theoretical and practical, of Frobel's 
system. But no one, having once made the study, can doubt that the 
complete and universal carrying out of the Kindergarten theory, the 
first, though imperfect, steps towards which have already been taken 
in many countries of Europe, and in tlie United States of America, 
would contribute enormously towards the production of men and women 
whose lives, actions, and thoughts shall make up a complete whole, 
•whose personality and individual characteristics shall stand out strongly 
and who shall have the courage to be always themselves, and not to 
lower themselves to the condition of conventional puppets. 

15 



226 THE KINDERGARTEN. 

It is only a more harmonious development of the special characteris- 
tics of individuals that can lead to the concord and unity of masses, 
whether of families, communities, or nations, and thence to the unity 
of mankind — the goal towards which the strongest impulse of our age 
is tending, and the next step to which is union with God. Frbbel sums 
up the various syntheses which humanity has to work out under the 
title of Lebenseinigung (unity of life), and calls to his contemporaries to 
work in the field of education towards the fulfillment of this idea with 

the motto : 

" Come, let us live for our children." 

In his book for mothers he savs : 
I 

" Parents, let your home a children's garden be, 

Where witli watchful love the young plant's growth you see ; 

A shelter let it be to them from all 

The dangers which their bodies may befall ; 

And still more a soil in which will grow. 

The inward forces that from God do flow ; 

Which with a father's love He unto men has given. 

That by their use they may upraise themselves to Heaven." 

Note. — It is not difficult to see why the hitherto imperfect organization of 
existing Kindergartens is only now beginning to approximate to something cor- 
responding to the original idea. The greatest obstacle to the perfect realization 
of this idea (especially as regards national Kindergartens) arises from the 
insufficient means of localization, and the scarcity of teachers, which necessitate 
taking in too many children at a time. The crowding together of herds of 
children, which must result in confusion and prevent the teacher from giving 
sufficient individual attention to her pupils, is by no means what Frobel contem- 
plated. He wished the number of children in national Kindergartens to be 
limited to thirty, or at the outside forty ; or else a larger number to be broken 
up into groups of thirty, under one teacher. This, as well as many others 
points, which have hitherto been overlooked, will meet with proper considera- 
tion, as the matter becomes more fully understood, and its development pro- 
gresses. At present the chief thing to be considered, is how to make the estab- 
lishment of Kindergartens as general as possible. 



FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL VIEWS. 227 



VII. THE MOTHER AND HER NURSERY SONGS. 

Frobel himself says of this " Matter und Koselieder " book : " I 
have here laid down the most important part of my educational method ; 
this book is the starting point of a natural system of education for the 
first years of life, for it teaches the way in which the germs di human 
dispositions must be nourished and fostered, if they are to attain com- 
plete and healthy development." 

But over and over again we hear people exclaim after a superficial 
glance through the book : " What wretched poetry, what lame rhymes, 
what unintelligible illustrations, and, above all, what absurdity ! the 
idea of regulating a mother's caressing and fondling of her child I " 

And such a judgment would not be iucoirect as far as the many 
imperfect verses and the f-tyle of the book generally is concerned. But 
at the same time many successful rhymes, and much true poetry will be 
found side by side with the philosophic thoughts thus embodied in the 
form of verse ; and what is of greater importance, there is a fund of cliild- 
like simplicity and naivete which seems to come straight from the child's 
soul, and must meet with response there. But above all it must not 
be forgotten that the mottoes contained in this book are intended for 
grown-up people, i. e. for mothers, and only the songs for children— and 
of these the greater number are fully adapted to infant comprehension. 

Notwithstanding, however, that the form of the book is quite a sec- 
ondary consideration, it is capable of being improved when its sub- 
stance has come to be understood. And this substance is not only new 
and important, but it is in the highest degree the production of genius. 
It reveals the process of development of the inner, instinctive life of 
childhood, and converts the intuitive, purposeless action of mothers into 
an intelligent plan, in a way which has never before been even at- 
tempted. The kej'-note of the book is the analogy between the devel- 
opment of humanity from its earliest infancy, and that of the individual. 
The fact that the germs of all human faculties and dispositions, as they 
show themselves in the life of humanity, in its passions, its efforts after 
culture, its whole manner of existence, are traceable in the nature of 
children as manifested in their instinctive utterances, — must be taken 
into account, in order that the games of children may be turned to their 
natural purpose, viz., the assistance of the child's development. 

So long as the analogy between the cours^ of tiie development of 
humanity and that of individual man is only recognized outwardly, and 
treated more or less as a fact in science, so long will little practical use 
be made of it. But it acquires an immense degree of importance, when 
once it is made the means of supplying education with an infallible 
guide, childhood with a regulator for its blind impulses, its uncertain 
groping and fumljling, and the maternal instinct with a safe channel. 

The practical hints contained in this book of Frobel's consist, it is 
true, of mere disconnected fragments, too often couched in obscure Ian- 



228 THE MOTHER AND HER NURSERY SONGS. 

gUAge. But experience proves that the mother's instinct is equal to the 
task of piecing the fragments together and rightly applying them. 

All ideas assume at starting a crude, unbeautiful shape, which for a 
time serves rather to hide and disfigure the inner meaning ; but when 
this meaning has at last made itself felt, the outward form becomes 
gradually remodeled and brought into accordance with it. And so it 
has been with the play of children. Its high significance had first to 
be discovered and made known before it could be embodied in a form 
corresponding to its object and to the degree of culture reached by 
civilized humanity. 

And even Frobel in the book in question has only taken the first step 
towards the attainment of this purpose, has done no more than point 
out in what manner it is possible. The filling up of gaps in the system, 
greater perfection of arrangement, and improvement in the outward 
form will not be difficult when, through more universal practical appli- 
cation, Frobel's great educational theory Mieets with more and more 
thorough understanding. Genius gives utterance to its thoughts, which 
will in due time become embodied in appropriate forms. 

Frobel rightly calls this book a family look, for only by its use in 
the family, in the hands of mothers, can it fulfill its purpose, and con- 
tribute towards raising the family to a level of human culture corre- 
sponding to the advanced civilization of the day, and preparing mothers 
for their vocation in the highest sense. 

Frobel made his " Mutter und Koselieder " the foundation of his lec- 
tures to Kindergarten teachers on his theory, and over and over again 
repeated : " I have here laid down the fundamental ideas of my educa- 
tional theory ; whoever has grasped the pivot idea of this book under- 
stands what I am aiming at. But how many do understand it ? Learned 
men have too great a contempt for the book to give it more than cursory 
attention ; and the majority of mothers only see in it an ordinary pict- 
ure-book with little songs. No doubt there are finer pictures and better 
verses to be had than mine, but of what use are they if wanting in any 
educational power ? Only a small minority of people get from my book 
a real understanding of my educational theory in all its fullness, but, if 
only mothers and teachers would follow its guidance they would at last 
see, in spite of all opposition, that I am right." 

I once replied to a similar outburst : " It is not always easy to trace 
the connection between the examples you give and the idea you wish to 
illustrate ; many of these are of such a kind that one must search long 
before one sees the reason of their being cited, and those who do not 
take this trouble will never find it out. This is the reason why so 
many people reject great part of the substance of the book ; they say 
it is so far-fetched, so unnatural, it is thought out artificially instead of 
being taken from observation of child-nature. You yourseK have had 
experience of such objections, and so have I in the course of my exposi- 
tion of the system. If you would only draw the conclusions of your 
ideas yourself and collect them together in a commentary they would 



THE MOTHER AND HER NURSERY SONGS. 2£9 

be much easier to understand, and the book which you consider of so 
great importance would at least be recognized by the thinking world." 

To which Frobel answered ; " You do not know what you are ask- 
ing : I should then be obliged to say everything, and I should be still 
less understood. None but the children wbo are brought up in Kinder- 
gartens will ever understand my philosophy in its breadth and depth. 
Let the world lattgh at me now as mttch as it likes for my ordering and 
arranging of children's play, and it will one day acknowledge that I 
am right, for the children will understand me and know that I under- 
stood them and fathomed the depths of their nature. If you are not 
afraid of being laughed at with me, do you write what you think is 
desirable for a better understanding of the system." 

It was Frbbel's misfortune that he had not the gift of expi'essing 
himself clearly and attractively in words ; indeed, it was a long time 
before he even realized that this was necessary, and that the concrete 
practical form in which he had so completely embodied his educational 
ideas, and which was to him the most natural form of expression, was 
not universally intelligible. Had it not been for the repeated experi- 
ence that his system was not understood by the general public, or even 
by the thinking world, he would, perhaps, never have attempted to 
translate his practical language into words. That neither his written 
nor his spoken explanations contributed to make Kindergartens more 
popular must be attributed to this want in his own nature, and not to 
any fault in his method of education. 

The following very imperfect attempt to throw some light on the 
contents of "Mutter und Koselieder" would have been given to the 
public sooner, but for the repeated experience that in no way is so 
much opposition to Frbbel's system excited, as by any endeavor to 
propagate this book. Yet, at the same time, there is no book that gives 
more pleasure, to mothers especially, than this one. It will not be 
unprofitable to communicate my experiences on this point. 

In all the towns of different countries in which I delivered lectures 
on Frobel's system (which lectures were almost always followed by 
the introduction of the system), in Paris, Brussels, London, Geneva, 
Lausanne, Neuchatel, Amsterdam, the Hague, Rotterdam, etc., as also 
in many German towns, I found pretty generally that the ideas most 
difficult to make intelligible, both to the learned and the unlearned, 
both to men and women, were the following ; — 

1. That the first mental development of the child goes on in its play, 
and that this play needs, consequently, to be as much systematized as 
the instruction imparted at a later age. 

2. That by rightly meeting and assisting the natural force which 
vents itself in play, or by faulty and mistaken treatment of it, it may 
be directed either to good (its true use) — or to evil (its abuse) ; and 

3. That the examples given in the " flutter und Koselieder " are 
psychologically based on the instinctive life of the child, even though 
they are not always expressed in the most perfect form. 



230 THE MOTHER AND HER NURSERY SONGS. 

Many profound thinkers, as well among psychologists as natural 
philosophers, were beyond measure astonished at Frobel's'theory, and 
gave their hearty agi-eement to it. Women of simple minds, but true 
motherly hearts, added their approval with tears in their eyes. They 
were struck by so much truth as " by lightning," as one of them ex- 
pressed it, and they felt the force of the book without yet thoroughly 
understanding it. Indeed, the contents of this book never failed to 
touch the hearts of mothers. It was only dry intellectual natures that 
exercised their powers of criticism on it without ever grasping its 
S2:)irit. And such criticism, we must own, is not unfair as regards the 
choice of many of the examples. A complete understanding of the 
theory will make a new and faultless selection possible. 

The nature of babies and young children is still much less considered 
by scientific observers than is that of plants and animals, and there is 
consequently in this field an infinite number of discoveries and experi- 
ences to be collected together, which in their impoi'tance for the well- 
being of human society are second to no science whatever. What 
Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Jean Paul, Burdach, Schleiermacher, and others 
have effected in this direction is still very little compared with what 
has yet to be done in order that education may really bear good fruit, 
and the secret workings of the child's mind and spirit be fully revealed. 
The side of the question which Frbbel specially illustrated, and for 
which he devised his practical method of application had, before his 
time, been almost wholly neglected. It is true that he was generally in 
agreement with Burdach's theories concerning the meaning of tlie first 
utterances of children, and when reading his works in the company of 
friends his face would beam with pleasure when he came to a passage 
that specially pleased him, and he would exclaim, — "See, I am right 
after all ; he has found it out too ! " But at the same time he was fully 
aware that in his fundamental idea he had discovered a new point of 
departure which had been overlooked by all his predecessors. 

However much or little the nature of children may have been studied, 
no one has come up to Frobel in his searching analysis of every phase 
and detail of their development. Following the example of modern 
natural science, which has descended from the study of the greatest 
phenomena to that of the least, and is making its most important dis- 
coveries through microscopic investigations, Frobel, in the field of 
human nature, goes back to the smallest beginnings, and finds thus the 
first link in the chain which connects one moment of human develop^ 
ment with all the others. He finds the law which lies at the bottom 
of all systematic development, and discovers the means for the applica- 
tion of this law. In the growth of the child he sees the same system 
of law as in organic growth generally, and he points out the complete 
analogy between the development of the child and that of the organisms 
of nature and of humanity as an organic whole. 

A new basis has thus been given to education, and it remains for us 
to build up upon it. But we must be content to wait patiently 



FKOEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL VIEWS. 231 



VIII. EARLIEST DEVELOPMENT OF THE LIMBS. 

DuRiXG the first years of life the physical development is the most 
marked and prominent, but the growth of the soul, though unperceived, 
goes on, nevertheless, all the while ; for in infancy body and soul are 
still completely in union, and can only be developed through mutual 
interaction. It is on this principle that Frdbel has compiled his " Mut- 
ter und Koselieder." The games introduced in this book are adapted 
both to cultivating the limbs and senses, and guiding and assisting the 
mind in its first awakening stage. 

Gymnastic exercises have come to be regarded as essential to bodily 
health, and their use in later childhood and youth is consequently 
gaining more and more ground in the present day. But bodily disci- 
pline is essential also to the moral well-being of humanity. By de- 
veloping muscular force the will is strengthened, and grace of mind 
and spirit increases in proportion to physical grace. 

Kow, if children require systematic muscular exercises when they 
can already walk and run and jump, they need them still more before- 
hand. Circus-riders and tight-rope dancers are taken at the tenderest 
age to be trained for their professions, because it is known that the 
pliability of the limbs decreases with every additional year. 

For centuries past the maternal instinct, following its playful bent, 
has devised all manner of little games which tend to exercise children's 
limbs; but these, like everything else that human beings do merely 
from instinct, fall far short of what they should be. 

The popular nursery-games that have been handed down by tradition 
are very much alike in all civilized countries, for they are the product 
of the natural instinct of mothers, which is the same all over the world 
and in all ages. Of these Frobel collected together all that were suita- 
ble for his purpose. During the greater part of his life it was his habit 
to go about familiarly among the homes of the people, in order to ob- 
serve the ways of mothers with their babies ; and in this way he accu- 
mulated a whole store of national nursery and cradle songs, which he 
adapted for his own use, taking care always to eliminate from them all 
the course expressions, unchildlike ideas, or utter nonsense, which too 
often disfigured and spoilt them. Mothers never play with their chil- 
dren in perfect silence ; they invariably talk or sing to them all the 
while, and those among us, who can still recall, with inward emotion, 
the first songs with which their mother's voice lulled them to sleep in 
their infancy, will not wonder at Frobel's connecting the earliest awak- 
ening of feeling with the songs that accompany his games. 

The object of ordinary gymnastic exercises is to produce the com- 
pletest possible development of all the muscles. This, however, would 
be fatiguing for young children, who, during the first years of their 



232 THE FIRST DEVELOPMENT OF THE LIMBS. 

life, require to be equally stimulated on all sides of their nature. Every 
branch, too, of their training must be carried on by the most gradual 
process. Both these essentials are fully considered in Frbbel's " Gym- 
nastic Games." The gymnastics of the body serve, at the same time, 
to promote the growth of the mental and spiritual organs, and the first 
playful activity of the child is made the starting-point, and the prepa- 
ration for all later development, both in the Kindergarten and the 
school, so that there may be sequence and continuity in the whole 
course of education. 

Life may be defined as activity, and all activity, which is in propor- 
tion to the natural strength, and not over-straining, is enjoyment. This 
truth is exemplified in the gambols of young animals, and in the case 
of little children who derive the greatest enjoyment from kicking their 
feet against some object which offers resistance, or against the hands 
of their mothers, who should encourage them to repeat the exercise, for 
it strengthens the muscles of their backs and legs. But the principal 
gymnastic exercises in Frobel's book have reference to the hand, which 
is the most important member of the human body. The increased use 
of machinery in the present day tends more and more to relieve human 
beings from all the rougher kind of manual labor, but there is, on the 
other hand, in all branches of industry a growing demand for artistic 
■work, and it is, therefore, of the greatest importance that care should 
be bestowed on cultivating manual dexterity. We have but to look at 
the children of the working-classes to see how stiff and awkward are 
usually those limbs which will one day be called upon to work for their 
bread. Unless the hand be exercised at the beginning of life a great 
measure of its pliability is lost, and the muscles do not acquire sufficient 
strength to be able to satisfy the modern technical demands of all kinds. 
Pianoforte players, sculptors, and other artists, know that it is only by 
practice, carried on from their earliest childhood, that they can attain 
perfect mastery in the technicalities of their arts. Education should, 
therefore, begin with teaching the manarjement of material, oi' manual 
work, then go on to the iransformation of material, which constitutes 
art or industry, and finally lead up to the spiritualization of material. 
Not time only, but much tedious discipline also would be saved in late 
years if children acquired a certain amount of mechanical dexterity by 
means of their early games. 

All things whatsoever that surround a child are either products of 
Nature or of human culture, and have their ultimate origin in God. 
Now, the child's relation to these things should be conveyed to him with 
the utmost possible clearness and definiteness, while, at the same time, 
the impression of unity and continuity, in vrhich, as yet, everything 
appears to him, must be preserved as much as possible. 

Let us examine a few specimens from the "Mutter und Koselieder," 
and see how Frobel carries out his ideas. 



FBOEBEL'S EDUCATIONAl, VIEWS. 233 



IX. THE CHILD S FIRST RELATIONS TO NATURE. 

We must here, of course, take for granted that the essential condi- 
tions of true education are at hand, and also teachers who understand 
how to make use of these conditions. In the streets of great cities, 
where many a child grows up to the age of ten years or more without 
making any acquaintance with nature, without seeing anything of the 
life of fields and forests, of the animal and the vegetable universe, 
Frobel's system of education cannot possibly be applied (unless there 
are Kindergartens within reach to supply the life of nature), and the 
human being must go without the most essential and natural elements 
of its development. The Kindergartens should supply to children the 
atmosphere of country life which is of such vital importance to them, 
and we feel assured that the day will come when it will be considered 
disgraceful for a human being to grow up without coming into contact 
with the glorious world of nature, where the breath of nature's God 
breathes with life-giving power. 

When a child of about a year old is taken out of doors, the things 
that first attract its notice are those that move. Movement signifies to 
children life, and is what they first become aware of. Hence the child's 
glance will at once be arrested by a weather-cock, or any other object 
moved by the wind. 

THE WEATHER-COCK 

is the name given to one of the first games for hand-gymnastics. 

The hand stretched out sideways with the thumb held upright repre- 
sents the weather-cock, and the movement from one side to the other 
forms an exercise for the muscles which connect the arm and the hand, 
and are the most important in all handiwork. 

But, in order that it may fulfill the purpose of strengthening the 
muscles, the movement must be uniform and regular. This is not 
generally the case with ordinary nursery hand-games. 

Children only really understand what comes into immediate contact 
with them, and is, so to speak, pai-t of their lives. No amount of vague 
staring at weather-cocks, or any other object swayed by the wind, will 
produce in them anything like a true impression of a force which causes 
the movement; but, if they imitate it themselves by the voluntary 
action of their hands, they will, after frequent repetition of the exercise, 
begin dimly to realize the idea of an invisible force at work behind the 
visible manifestation. 

The motto of this game, addressed to the mother, is as follows : 

" Wouldst thou give thy child of outward things a notion, 
Let it learn early to imitate their motion. 
Thus in these things deeply ground it, 

It will learn 

To discern, 
And to copy things around it." — Amelia Gumey. 



234 THE CHILD'S FIRST EELATIONS TO NATURE. 

SONG. 
" As the Tveather-cock on the tower 
Turns about in wind and shower, 
Baby moves its hands with pleasure, 
Round and round in merry measure." — Amelia Gumey. 

If the action were not accompanied by explanatory words, the child's 
intelligence and power of speech would not be called out. 

The next important step, viz., to connect the visible phenomena of 
which the child has been made conscious, with an invisible cause, is 
easily taken. The mother, for instance, says : " The wind moves the 
trees, the mill, the kite, etc.," and then asks, " Where is the wind ? " 
and when the child begins to look about in search of the wind, she says : 
" The wind does all this, but we cannot see the wind." 

Another game is called 

THE SUN-BIRD, 

and consists in reflecting the sun's rays through a bit of glass, and let- 
ting them play on the wall. The mother or teacher says to the child, 
" Catch the bird," and after he has made two or three vain attempts to 
do so, she adds, " We can see the bird, but it will not let us catch it." 
The child thus learns at an early age that it is not only material posses- 
sion that gives pleasure, that beauty has the power to penetrate to the 
soul, and to produce greater happiness than mere enjoyment of the 
senses can afford. 

The knowledge impressed on its mind in various ways that material 
things cannot be laid hold of with all the senses, and that their ultimate 
cause cannot be grasped at all, leads the child, at the very beginning 
of its observations, from the idea of matter to something higher than 
matter, and accustoms it to reason from the visible world to a higher 
invisible one, and to a higher power ruling in everything. It must be 
well understood, of course, that at first children are only capable of 
receiving a more or less distinct impression of this truth. 

But not the phenomena of the earth only, those of the heavens also, 
the sun, the moon, and the stars, are made use of by Frbbel to convey to 
the child's mind a sense of the relationship of man to the universe. 
And here he adopts the only possible means, viz., awakening in the 
child a perception of the living bond of union which connects every- 
thing together as a whole, the power of sympathy and love. The child 
suspects as yet no divisions and contradictions in the world ; his near- 
est surroundings, which speak to him as love, are for him the meas- 
ure and pattern of everything else. Neither has he any conception 
of distance, but snatches at the far-off moon as at the flower close to 
him. And this sense of the unity and continuity of the outward world, 
which is the result of his own. inward harmony or innocence, it must be 
our endeavor to preserve for him, and not let the knowledge of conflict- 
ing forces open his eyes any sooner to divisions and discords than grow- 
ing self-consciousness will sooner or later unavoidably do for him. The 



THE CHILD'S FIRST RELATIONS TO NATURE. 235 

intuitive perception in tlie cliild's soul of the oneness and unity of God 
is after all the eternal truth, and all the warring and strife in the more 
conscious lives of men and women only a passing phenomenon of 
spiritual growth. 

THE CHILD AND THE MOON 

is an example of the only intelligible way in which the great universal 
harmony and concord of all created things can be communicated to the 
child's mind, viz., through the idea of love to himself. 

SONG. 
(To he said or sung by the mother.) 
" See, my child, the moon's sweet light, 
Up in heaven shining bright. 
Moon come down, come quickly here 
To my little child so dear." 
" Gladly would I come and play 
"With you, but too far away 
I live, and from my home above 
I cannot come to those I love. 
But I send my shining light 
To make the earth you live on bright, 
Just to please you, little child, 
I look down with my glance so mild ; 
And, although I'm far away, 
I watch with love your merry play. 
You must promise me to be 
Good and kind, and then you'll see, 
I shall often, often come. 
And look in at your happy home ; 
And when my shining light you see. 
You must wave a kiss to me." 
" Good-bye, good-bye, dear moon, 
Come back again right soon ! " 

Thus Frobel would have the natural phenomenaof the universe made 
use of as stepping-stones to higher knowledge, and, above all things, by 
leading the child's observations in gradual stages from created things up 
to the Creator, he would make these phenomena the means of conveying 
to the child's soul a conception of the highest Being. •' My system of 
education is based on religion, and intended to lead up to religion." 

The child's relation also to the world of plants and animals will only 
become real and vivid to him if he has to do with them himself, if from 
his cradle he has grown up among flowers, and has not lacked animal 
playfellows, "his brothers beneath him," as Michelet says. 

Frobel would have liked to see hung up before the cradle of every 
infant a bird in a cage, the movements and twitterings of which would 
occupy the child's attention immediately on its awaking, and prevent 
that idle brooding by which the weight of the material world smothers 
the feeble spark of the spirit. Even young babies should be brought 
into contact with all the elementary foi'ces of nature — which are those 
most closely related to its own nature — and for this purpose they should 
spend the greater part of the day, when the weather and season allow 



236 THE CHILD'S FIRST RELATIONS TO KATUKE. 

it, in the open air, where the voices of wind and water, color, form, 
and sounds of thousand-fold kinds, will be their first instructors. Thus 
the senses will be trained and fitted for conveying to the soul its earliest 
nourishment. Without cultivation of the senses cultivation of the soul 
is impossible. Too little distinction, however, is still made between 
disciplined and undisciplined enjoyment of the senses. Real, elevated, 
mental enjoyment can only be realized through cultivated senses, and 
such enjoyment will overcome that delight in the coarse gratification of 
the senses which is incompatible with human dignity. 

Children should be encouraged, also, to call around them the chick- 
ens, pigeons, or other domestic animals at hand, and, whilst they are 
scattering food before them, little songs may be sung in which the 
modes of life of these animals may be described. Children are not capa- 
ble of intelligent observation of human life, and can only understand 
the actions of human beings in so far as they have any relation to them- 
selves. The life of animals, on the other hand, supplies them with 
hundreds of scenes in which the rude primitive existence out of which 
humanity has developed itself is reflected, as in 

THE FARM- YARD GATE. 

What can this be ? A gate I see ! 
Oh ! come into the court with me ; 

The horses are springing, 

Tlie pigeons are flying, 

The geese are chattering, 

The ducks are quacking, 

The hens are cackling, 

The cock is crowing, 

Tlie cow is lowing, 

The calf is sporting, 

The lamb is baaing, 

The sheep is bleating, 

The pig is grunting ; 
Closely shut the gate must be. 
That none may run away, 
But all in peace together stay.— Amelia Chirneij. 

It is generally the sight of animals that first awakens in children a 
desire for knowledge. With a little encouragement and direction they 
will easily learn their names and chief characteristics, and be led to ob- 
serve their movements, habits, manner of life, etc. ; they will learn how 
to manage and look after them, and so get to love them, and know their 
value to mankind. And all this knowledge will be a preparation for 
life and intercourse in the world of human beings. If children have 
early learned to observe the endless differences that exist in the condi- 
tions of animals, how all the separate species, varying in their ways 
and requirements, live and flourish in different elements and surround- 
ings, they will not be so liable to fall into the Philistine habit of criti- 
cising and condemning everything in which their fellow-creatures differ 
from themselves — the seeds of wide-hearted toleration and love of jus- 
tice will have been planted in them. 



THE CHILD'S FIRST EELATIONS TO NATUKE. 237 

All the different images and influences of nature produce correspond- 
ing moods in the human mind. A landscape, smiling in the sunshine, 
impresses the mind very differently from a hurricane by the seashore, 
and the song of the nightingale produces a different effect from the 
croaking of owls. The young child perceives at first only individual 
objects in nature; the thing which is occupying him at the moment is 
all that will excite his attention or influence his mind. 

To grown people and children alike impressions produced by nature 
seem, more or less, the creation of their own souls, and for this reason, 
that there is everywhere harmony between the outward world and the 
inner nature of man, everywhere analogies may be traced between the 
material and the spiritual world ; and how should it be otherwise when 
the Spirit which pervades both these inter-dependent worlds is one? 

To a song called " The Little Fishes," which is accompanied by a 
finger exercise imitating the swimming undulating movement of fish, 
Frobel has affixed the following motto (which, indeed, may be consid- 
ered the key to all the songs in the book), — 

" Where there's movement, where there's action, 

For the child's eye tliere's attraction ! 

Where briglitness, melody, and measure, 

Its little heart will throb with pleasure, 
Oh ! Mothers, strive to keep these young souls fresh and clear, 
That order, truth, and beauty, always may be dear ! " 

Cleanliness and order in everything that relates to a child's bodily 
wants will also influence the purity of its soul, just as the delight in 
clear sparkling water, and all that is bright and transparent, has more 
to do with the spiritual nature than the bodily senses. "All things 
are parables " (Alles ist Gleichniss), said Goethe, when he wanted to ex- 
press the analogy between the world of outward phenomena and the 
world of thought and ideas. The time will come when the whole sym- 
bolic language of nature will be clear and intelligible to mankind. 

It is not mere infantine curiosity which is at work when children 
peer with eager eyes into a nest full of young birds. The snug little 
home, in which the parent-birds nest!e out of sight with their young 
ones, is to the child a picture of its own home life, which he cannot 
form a distinct objective conception of until he has seen it, as it were, 
placed at a distance from himself. His own parents are too closely 
united with him, too much part of his own life, for him to be able to 
form a right idea of his relations to them. 

A child of two or three years old, who tries hard to round his little 
hands into the shape of a bird's-nest, singing all the while the little 
" bird-song," will be sure to think of his own dear mother. 

Two pretty birds built a soft warm nest, 

In which together they may rest ; 

Three round eggs in the nest they lay, 

And hatch three young birds one fine day ! 
" Twit, twit, twit," the young ones call, 
" Mother, thou art so dear to us all." — Amelia Gumey. 



238 THE CHILD'S FIKST RELATIONS TO NATUKE. 

Frobel uses this example, of the visible providence of parents, to 
lead the mind up to the invisible providence of the all-protecting Heav- 
enly Father. The child is then taught to observe either in real life, or 
in the pictures of the " Mutter uud Koselieder," how every little bird 
is taken care of in a special way, how it builds its nest where it is safe 
from danger, and where the food it requires is within reach, and that 
it builds this nest, and hatches its young ones, at the time of year when 
the unfledged little creatures will be protected by the warmth of the 
spring sun, and so forth. And then the mother, di-awing the child's 
attention to the fearlessness with which the little birds lie quietly in 
their nest, waiting for the return of their mother, who has gone to fetch 
them food, repeats these words : 

" Tlie lieavenly Father's glorious sun 

Warms thy home too aud makes it bright, 
He shines on thee and every one, 

Looli up and thank him for his light." 

And many other verses of the book point in like manner to God's all- 
ruling Providence. 

The child, who, at the age of two years, has imitated the watering 
of flowers, in the hand-game called the '-watering-pot," when it is a 
year or two older, will delight in carrying water to real flowers, and 
somewhat later on will tend its patch of ground diligently, for its senses 
will, from the very first, have been awakened to the fact that all living 
things require care and love, and that love must show itself in action. 
Whatever children have to take cai'e of they learn to love, and, through 
the care and attention bestowed on plants and animals, their feelings 
will be so enlarged and cultivated that in after-life they will be capable 
of making sacrifices for the human beings whom they love. 

As every human instinct has its analogy in nature, so has thai instinct 
of which conscience is in time developed. If the order and regularity 
of nature be rightly understood, and the evil recognized which follows 
neglect or violation of natural laws, the order of the moral world, trans- 
gression against which constitutes sin, will be easily grasped. Just as 
every breach of the laws of nature speaks distinctly in the outward 
visible world, so does the voice of conscience make itself loudly heard 
within, when, by something unworthy of its higher destiny, the laws 
of human nature are violated. 

None but those who do not understand or observe the nature and 
character of children, who have forgotten their own childhood, and 
have no feeling or love for nature, will consider it a piece of far-fetched 
absurdity, thus to interpret the earliest games of children as the start- 
ing-point of the life of the soul, and the beginning of mental develop- 
ment. If the first play and laughter of the infant had no connection 
with the last deeds of the old man, how could we pretend to believe in 
anything like continuity in human life, and man's inward develop- 
ment ? Only when the idea of this continuity has been fully grasped, 



THE CHILD'S FIRST RELATIONS TO NATURE. 239 

when education shall succeed in preserving unbroken the thread which 
connects the child with the youth, will the man live and act to the end 
of his days up to the ideal of his youth. And then only shall we see 
real men and women truly great and worthy characters. 

In an age like ours, when fresh advances must be made in order, as far 
as possible, to heal the breach which has hitherto existed between man 
and nature — and which was necessary for the growth of human under- 
standing and consciousness — and to bring humanity and nature, by 
the conquest and spiritualization of the latter, into a new bond of 
union, in an age when natural science places itself at the head of all 
science, and subdues to itself one department of life after another, a 
new generation must not be allowed to grow up without receiving its 
initiation in this temple of Divine revelation, and being fitted to exer- 
cise wisely the sovereignty assigned to man over the kingdom of nature. 
And this initiation must take place at the very commencement of life, 
through the teaching of the symbolic language of nature, which chil- 
dren's eyes can read better than others. As humanity in the dawn of 
its existence apprehended clearly the language of nature, and heard in 
it distinctly the voice of God, so in the thousand voices of nature does 
the child hear God speaking to it, and lofty truths are the first impres- 
sions made on its soul. The rippling brook tells him the loveliest 
fairy tales ; the vine-leaves swayed by the summer breeze reveal to him 
the first secrets of beauty ; the flowers greet him as brothers and sis- 
ters, and exchange smiling glances with him ; the wind-chased clouds, 
painted by the evening sun, shape themselves to Lis fancy into magic 
pictures of an ideal world ; butterflies and insects speak to him in a 
familiar language, and the birds gladden with poetry that is ever new. 

In such a world of beauty and divine peace, the young heart will so 
expand and strengthen as to be able later to endure the turmoil and 
strife of the human world, will acquire force sufficient to overcome all 
adverse powers, and gain an indomitable belief in the Divine Spirit, 
and an immutable trust in the fatherly love of God. 

'' AVhat God has joined together, let not man separate ! " says Frobel 
with regard to man's " union with nature." 



240 FKOEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL VIEWS. 



X. THE CHILD S FIRST RELATIONS TO MANKIND. 

The child awakens to life in its mother's arms, its mother is, so to 
say, its own wider life. Without her cure, without her looks of love, 
existence would offer a sorry prospect to the young new-comer. The 
mother must be her child's fii'st mediator with the world and mankind. 

The physical union between mother and child, which still continues 
for some time after birth, becomes gradually loosened, and that first by 
the child learning to walk, which is the first stage of physical independ- 
ence. But even in this earliest period of the child's life a certain degree 
of spiritual union, between mother and child, must have been gained, 
if, with the growing freedom and independence of body, there is to be 
an increase of the mental union from which the mother derives her 
chief educational power. Woe to the child who learns to run without 
ever, during its first exercise of this new freedom, hurrying back in 
terror to his mother's loving arms ! To the end of his life there will be 
a void in his soul, for the first love-bond in his life was not knit closely 
and securely enough. But if the hearts of mother and child are rightly 
fused together, during the period of bodily union and earliest nurture, 
then the physical emancipation of the child will work in the opposite 
direction as regards mind and spirit ; spiritual union will increase with 
the child's consciousness of its physical independence of its mother, 
with the development of its personality. 

The first utterance through which the child expresses its love relation- 
ship to hum^n beings, to its mother, is smiling. The human heart alone 
is capable of laughter and tears, and for the newborn infant this is the 
only language at command to express its wants and feelings. 

All relationships start from one point, one object, and they must first 
be firmly knit round this point before they can bear to have their limits 
widened. Thus the mother should be the central point round which 
the child's being revolves at first ; she should not allow any one else to 
have so nmch to do with him as herself, in order that his heart may 
learn to concentrate itself. A great deal of harm is still done in tins 
respect by nurses and other servants. The children of wealthy parents, 
who are surrounded by numbers of attendants, and handed over first to 
one and then another, frequently grow up with weak, unstable affections. 

The natural sequence of human relationship for the child is from 
the mother to the father, the brothers and sisters, the grandparents, the 
more distant members of the family, and the servants of the house ; 
and after these come its own playfellows and the friends of its parents. 
Very young children are apt to cry, or, at any rate, put on a look of 
alarm, if taken amongst a large company of strangers, and this is sim- 
ply because tl^ey cannot yet feel any connection between themselves 
and people outside their own family, and are therefore frightened by 
them. Everything strange and unknown, unless it be led up to by 



THE CHILD'S FIRST RELATIONS TO M'ANKIND. 241 

gradual transitions, gives a shock to the system. If the harmony of 
the soul is to be comjjlete in tlie future, the child's feelings must not 
be overstrained at first, but be allowed to expand gradually. 

Hence it must always have a pernicious effect to take young children 
out of tlie family circle, and set them in the midst of a larger commu- 
nity, where no natural bonds of affection can be knit.* Children who 
have been placed at an early age in orphanages, or who have spent the 
first part of their lives in a foundling hospital, will generally be found 
to have a melancholy, listless expression of countenance ; they always 
look as if something was wanting to them, however good the arrange- 
ments of these institutions may be. Nothing can fully take the place 
of the natural atmosphere of family-life which has been divinely or- 
dained for children, though at the same time it is fair to acknowledge 
that orphan asylums do, to an immense extent, compensate the littl 
ones received in them for the want of a mother's care and love. 

" Father, mother, and child make up at first the whole human being,' 
says Frbbel. The family is the first link in the organism of liumanity 
the first social community. And if this first link be imperfect, how 
can the others hang together properly ? 

If, on the other hand, tliis small circle, in which the starting point of 
morality may be said to lie, does not in course of time extend its horizon, 
exclusive family love would degenerate into family egotism, of which 
there is already quite enough in the world. In the Middle-Ages sucli 
exclusiveness was to a certain extent necessary ; it had its justifications 
and its good results. But in the present day the conditions of life are 
different ; and family egotism, such particularly as exists among the 
aristocracy and in the seclusion of country life, must be rooted out as a 
remnant of feudalism if the love of humanity is to increase and spread. 

Hence children, when once they have become thoroughly at home in 
the family circle — have embraced all its members in their affections — 
must be introduced to a larger circle, which should consist chiefly of 
childi'en of their own age. The face of the youngest child will brightea 
with delight when it meets another of the same size or age. An in- 
stinctive feeling of sympathy arises where there is a similar degree of 
development, just as in later life people of kindred minds become at- 
tached to one another. The Kindergarten affords the best possible 
playground for infants, even befoi-e their second year; but it is essen- 
tial that they should be accompanied by their mothers or nurses. 

The hand-games in the " Mutter und Koselieder " furnish also the first 
introduction to the family relationships. 

Almost everything that comes nnder a child's notice will suggest to 
it these relationships, because they are the only ones known to it. Its 



*It is quite another thing, to take young children (even during their two first years) 
for part of the day to Kindergartens, for they will there be thrown only with childreB, 
and will have companions of their own age. 

16 



242 THE CHILD'S FIEST KELATIOKS TO MANKIND. ■" 

dolls are made to represent father, or mother and children ; it plays at 
being father or mother with its little companions. A child of two years 
old or so will cry out : " Father and mother stars 1 " while gazing at 
two large shining orbs in the heavens (see ^'3Iutler und Koselieder"). 
These and a hundred other examples teach us what a prominent place 
this most natural of relations occupies in the minds of children. 

In one of the finger-games the child's fingers are made to represent 
its parents, brothers, and sisters. 

For instance : ' 

This is the mother, dear and good; 
This ia the father, of merry mood; 
This is the brother, strong and tall; 
This is the sister, beloved of all; 
This is the baby, still tender and small; 
And this the whole family we call. 
Count them — one, two, three, four, five, 
To be happy and good they always strive. 

In another game the fingers are counted and doubled down one after 
the other into the palm of the hand, while at the same time the names 
of the brothers and sisters and of the child itself are enumerated : 

To thumb now I say one; 

To index finger, two; 

To middle finger, three; 

To ring finger, four; 

At little finger five I number. 

Now I've put them all to bed, 

Pillowed is each sleepy head; 

Let them rest in peaceful slumber.— ^»ie?ia Gumey. 

Counting is an inexhaustible source of amusement to little children, 
as, indeed, may be everything that is of importance for their develop- 
ment, if only it be presented to them in a suitable form ; and it is ex- 
tremely easy to make the importance of number intelligible to them by 
degrees, either with the measure of music, or the rhythm of verse, or 
by giving them a number of things to count. This little game also 
affords opportimity for exercising children's power of self-control. 
Nothing is more difficult to them than to stand perfectly still without 
making a sound or movement ; it is in vain that they are bidden to be 
silent unless they are made to feel that there is a reason for silence. 
But here is a game of which they understand the meaning, and they 
will remain perfectly motionless, with an expression of the greatest 
importance, for whole minutes, and even a quarter of an hour, under 
the impression that they must not wake the sleeping little ones. 

From young children only very little must be expected, and only a 
little at a time can be taken in by them. The smallest efforts increased 
by degrees will lead up at last to the greatest ones. 

In another of the finger-games the fingers represent a flower-basket 
in which the child carries flowers to its father, and thus opportunity is 
afforded to the tiniest human being of expressing its love in action. 



THE CHILD'S FIRST RELATIONS TO MANKIND. 243 

The motto to this is : 

" Seek your children's hearts to hold, 

By all the means you can devise ; 
Even their love for you may grow cold, 

A plant that is not watered dies." 

Further on in the book we find two grandmothers visiting each other 
with their grandchildren : this is an expansion of family relations. 
The story connected with this game strings together all the various 
objects which have hitherto served the child as playthings in order to 
])roduce on its mind an impression of the continuity and connection of 
all things. 

Frobel says : 

" The child should grow into a full harmonious whole, 
This is, while yet on earth, the destiny of his soul." 

It is one of Frobel's leading ideas, and one which recurs again and 
again, to impress the unity and continuity of the universe and of 
humanity on the child's mind in all sorts of different ways. 

If the modern mania for associations would extend itself to associa- 
tions of families, for the combined purpose of improving education and 
of introducing greater community into it, more good would be done 
than, by all the associations for matei-ial and industrial ends. The 
Kindergarten furnishes the best means for this purpose by placing the 
beginnings of education among a community of friendly families, each 
member of which has the opportunity of using his endowments for the 
greatest good of the young generation. 

As in the case of adult individuals, of nations, and of humanity, 
there are great and critical periods of development which have a 
decisive influence on their careers or histories — so is it with the growth 
of children. It is such periods as these that Frobel endeavours to point 
out and explain to mothers in order that they may turn them to their 
destined use. The greater the child's unconsciousness at the time, the 
stronger will be the effect on its moral development of all impressions 
it may receive. If these critical periods of growth were judiciouf^ly dealt 
with, not too roughly interfered with, while at the same time sufficiently 
watched and helped to make their work lasting, the whole development 
of the character would receive a different and a better bias. The most 
trifling incidents are of importance in childhood ; for the whole future 
life is influenced by the impressions made then. 

For instance, Frobel looks upon the child's first fall as an important 
event in his early development, and one of which the full impression 
should not be disturbed. The child's confidence in running arises from 
his being still ignorant of danger — he is like virtue which has not yet 
been tried! He falls, and is for the first time frightened out of the 
repose of unconsciousness. The wise plan then would be to leave him 
to himself, not to lift him up at once and overwhelm him with pity and 
lamentations, even though he should have hurt himself a little and 



244 THE CHILD'S FIRST RELATIONS TO MANKIND. 

begun to cry. This first fright and pain -will thus produce their full 
impression on him, and foresight will be awakened in him ; his self- 
confidence will no longer be a blind Instinct, and the necessity of 
acquiring strength and skill will become gradually recognized. 

Nothing makes people so superficial as being subject to constant 
rapid successions of impressions, the one effacing the other, and no 
lasting mark being left on the mind or character. The present genera- 
tion, in the rich and fashionable world especially, affords ample proof 
of this. Rapid reading, rapid traveling, enjoyments of every kind 
(even the noble pleasures of art and nature) crowded one on the other, 
the hurry and bustle of modern life generally, tend more than anything 
else to produce superficiality, emptiness, and dullness. 

So little thought has hitherto been given to the signification of chil- 
dren's earliest play, that we cannot too often remind our readers not to 
look for this meaning in the outward form of their games, but in the 
fact that the utterances of children, being the natural expression of 
their human nature, reveal this nature in its earliest beginnings. A 
considerable number of examples from the series in the *' Mutter und 
Kosdieder " is necessary to make Frobel's theories quite intelligible. 

One of the well-known games often played with little children, and 
which always causes them great enjoyment, is Bo-Peep. Now it is 
Frobel's theory that whatever invariably calls forth expressions of 
delight from the little beings, and has become a tolerably universal 
practice, has always a deep significance for their development ; and he 
explains the never-ending delight afforded by the game of Bo-Peep in 
this manner : that the child through the momentary separation from 
its mother (viz., when she is hidden by the handkerchief) becomes 
more conscious of its dependence on her, and for this reason that noth- 
ing can be realized, or made objective to the mind, except by contrast 
•with its opposite. But if the mother should neglect to evince her joy 
at seeing her child again after being hidden from him, or should allow, 
the child to remain hidden too long without looking for him and rejoic- 
ing at finding him again, a love of hiding for its own sake may gradu- 
ally be acquired, and thus the first step taken towards the habit of 
concealment, from which falsehood and deceit are not far removed. 

Who could pretend to decide exactly where the first imperceptible 
germs of evil in the human soul originate, and how they show them- 
selves ? The faintest gleam that promises to light up the darkness of 
early psychology is not to be despised by the educationalist, and Frobel 
has certainly penetrated deeper than any one else into the earliest 
beginnings of the soul's life. Good and evil lie always close together, 
but Divine Providence can make good come even out of evil ; and 
education should do its utmost to use the impulses which might lead to 
evil for the promotion of good. With regard to the danger of the game 
of Bo-Peep exciting in the child a love of concealment Frobel says : 



THE CHILD'S FIRST RELATIONS TO MANKIND. 245 

" From the very point whence danger threatens to come, help may come 
also — as it always is in God's world — if only you, the mother, rightly 
understand how to turn to a right account every impulse of your child's 
nature. Through the outward separation, rightly used, the sense of 
inward union will be strengthened in the child. The great end every- 
where to be kept in view is the attainment of unity, and every separa- 
tion should be made to conduce to this end." 

What is most essential for the later educational influence of the 
mother is that in the very earliest period of her child's development 
she should have succeeded in gaining its confidence, so that, when the 
moment of the first fault (or " fall ") comes, the child should not think 
of hiding itself from her. But this confidence can only be won by the 
mother's living in the child's life, that is to say, playing with it, enter- 
ing into everything that occupies its little min^ ; in short, understand- 
ing and rightly directing its earliest utterances. If the first fault has 
been committed, loving sympathy with the child's inward suffering, 
while at the same time he is made to feel that it is to a certain extent 
brought on by himself, will have more effect than any scolding or 
punishment. That these cannot be entirely dispensed with as the child 
grows older is of course understood ; but the natural consequences of a 
fault are always its most effectual punishment. The youngest child 
can tell at once whether praise or blame is intended in a look, and if 
the mother possess true educational tact she can do much in this way. 

This occasion of the child's first fault is of the greatest importance, 
because it brings with it the first awakening of conscience. 

In order that he may learn to listen to this inward voice, to catch by 
degrees its faintest whispers, and follow them obediently, the child 
must first have been accustomed to pay attention to a call addressed to 
himself. Frobel associates the first attention to the mother's call with 

THE CUCKOO GAME. 

The child is hidden in its mother's arms or close to her, does nbt see 
her, but hears her call, and is delighted by the sound of her voice. If 
the child be constantly kept up to following obediently the voice of his 
mother directing him to what is good and right, he will also listen to 
the voice within him, and not let it speak in vain. If the mother has 
made her call dear to him by never requiring of him anything in oppo- 
sition to his childish nature or to his particular character, then he will 
also love the call of conscience as the voice of God, and this voice will 
accompany him through life as a guardian angel and bind him to God. 
The same relation which exists between the child and mother after the 
former has learned to distinguish his own will, and therewith his own 
personality from that of his mother, will exist later between his indi- 
vidual inclinations and the judicial or warning voice of universal reason 
speaking to him through conscience. If love, loving obedience, and 
trusting confidence prevail between mother and child instead of fear 



246 I'HE CHILD'S FIRST RELATIONS TO MANKIND. 

of severity and punishments, there will be a possibility in later life of 
that true virtue which follows the dictates of conscience, not from cow- 
ardice and fear of compulsion (inward or outward), but from free 
choice and out of love of right, and of God. Whether a human being 
becomes a moral freedman (within the given limits) or a slave to his 
own and others' caprices, depends to a great extent on the foundation 
laid in the earliest days of his development. It is not how often or 
how seldom he fails, but how he lifts himself up from his falls and 
atones for sins committed, that determines the moral worth of a man. 

In our days, when obedience to personal authority is growing less 
and less, it is certainly of the utmost importance that education should 
do all in its power to encourage obedience to law. The child should 
be made to feel at an early age that his parents and teachers are, like 
himself, subject to a higher power, in order that there may be early 
awakened in his mind the conception of a moral order, to whose au- 
thority he will in time have to submit. All the qualities of a child 
may, if not carefully watched, pass over into their opposites and de- 
generate into faults. 

The first characteristic with which education has to contend is self- 
will. Without a certain amount of self-will the character would never 
develop itself ; for it is precisely out of self-will, i. e., one's own will, 
that the resolution, the assertion of one's own personality and opinion, 
in short, all that makes of human beings morally responsible men and 
women, is developed. 

The child's self-will is the perverted expression of his growing feel- 
ing of personality. This feeling is roused when something contrary 
happens to it, or something that it wants is denied to it. Now if this 
something be a thing that he is justified in wanting, something that has 
to do with a necessity of his preservation or development, the child is 
in the right ; but if he simply will not submit to some justifiable de- 
mand of his elders, then he is in the wrong, and must not be listened 
to. For instance, a child cries in its cradle for food, or from an in^ 
stinct of cleanliness, or any other justifiable prompting of its nature, 
and is not attended to, and this neglect excites him to anger, and his 
screaming is set down to self-will. In such a case the mother or nurse 
is to blame. But if a child simply cries whenever it wants to be taken 
out of its cradle, it must not always be humored ; so that its will or 
determination may not degenerate into obstinacy or willfulness. True, 
the child may be said to be justified in requiring that which is agreeable 
to it, and wishing to get rid of what is disagreeable; as, for instance, 
lying alone and unoccupied in its cradle. But then some occupation 
should be provided for it in its cradle, and thus the reasonable part of 
its demand be satisfied. 

It is most essential that children should learn from the very begin- 
ning to submit to the conditions of life, and even sometimes to do 
without what they are justified in wishing for, and to bear what is 



THE CHILD'S FIRST RELATIONS TO MANKIND. 24*7 

unpleasant to them for the sake of others ; they must be trained from 
their cradles to subordinate the individual will to the community, and 
to sacrifice self out of love to others. But these exercises in self-denial 
must not at first extend to giving up anything really necessary to them, 
and must never last too long. 

There is no more difficult task in education than to strike the right 
balance in this matter, on which the whole struggle of human life 
turns ; avoidance of all tliat is disagreeable, of all pain and sorrow, and 
striving after well-being and happiness, arejthe two opposite forces by 
means of which Providence works out our whole development. Here, 
too, love, the highest principle of morality, is the only one that can lead 
in the right direction. Let children leai-n through love to give up their 
own will to others ; this is the only right sort of obedience and that 
which arouses energy for good, whereas obedience from fear produces 
cowardice. The obedience of love begets reverence, the noble desire 
not to grieve parents or others who are beloved, and from it there will 
spring later a holy fear and reverence of God. 

In training children to obey, very little distinction is made between 
right and wrong obedience. The child's will is too often cowed instead 
of being guided and directed towards right ; and this is the reason why 
so few human beings attain that true moral independence without 
which the highest kind of freedom, that of self-government, is impossi- 
ble, and the inner kernel of the character can never fully unfold itself. 

Frobel lays down the following general rules : To satisfy the child's 
demands as much as possible; to be wisely indulgent; not to command 
and forbid unreasonably ; and to allow the child, as far as it can do so 
without injury, to teach itself by its own experiences. 

It would not be nearly so difficult to make children obedient if people 
began in earliest childhood, and set to work in the right way. Before 
egotistic inclinations, selfish impulses and passions have yet been 
aroused and become obstacles'^n the way, submission to law, which pre- 
sents itself in the guise of parental authority, is not difficult to the 
child if only he has been inspired with a sense that nothing but his wel- 
fare and happiness are thought of. 

This applies also to animals, who know at once whether harm or 
good is meant them. One glance at the human eye is enough to inspire 
the animal and the little child with confidence or distrust. It is only by 
patience and love that animals can be trained, not by commanding and 
forbidding; and yet this latter plan is the one chiefly adopted with 
young cliildren, in spite of the proverb which says, '■^ Das verbot nur 
reizt." These then are the chief things to be remembered : That love 
begets confidence ; that only what is right and wholesome should be 
required of children ; that all compulsion should be avoided from the 
beginning ; that they should never be taxed beyond their strength, and 
that everything that is disagreeable to them should as far as possible 
be averted from them. 



248 THE CHILD'S FIRST RELATIONS TO MANKIND. 

As they grow older, more and more may by degrees be exacted from 
them, and sometimes even that -which for the moment is difficult and 
disagreeable, for love and trust will submit blindly and conquer the 
individual will. 

And as it is only in childhood that a firm basis of true obedience can 
be laid, so it is with all virtues which depend chiefly on the formation 
of good habits and experience of their beneficial consequences. It is 
therefore of the greatest importance that this first period of childhood 
should be understood in its minutest details and treated accbrdingly. 

Another critical moment in the development of children, and one 
which the " Mutter und Koselieder " takes note of, is when they first 
begin to observe that people are talking about them and criticising tbem. 
Without the desire to gain the love and approval of others, the human 
being would be deprived of his sti'ongest stimulus in his endeavors after 
the good and the beautiful. This desire kindles in the child as soon 
as he arrives at a distinct perception of his own personality. He then 
begins to wish to be loved aud praised by others, and it depends on the 
right or wrong guidance of this instinct whether it will develop into 
proper love and reverence, or into vanity and ambition. 

In the games " The Riders and the Good Child," and " The Eiders 
and the Sulky Child," Frobel endeavors to teach mothers the right way 
of dealing in this respect, by making the riders delighted with the good 
child, while they leave the sulky one behind. Children must be made 
to feel that they are loved for their good qualities, and not for their 
outward appearance. They are too apt to hear themselves praised as 
the " pretty child," the " beautiful child ; " to have their clothes ad- 
mired, etc. The attention of many mothers is exclusively taken up 
with their children's dress. " What will people say if you make your 
frock dirty, crumple your hat ? " and so forth, is the ordinary talk of 
nurses. Thus the child grows up with llie idea that people pay more 
attention to its outward person, and value it more for this than for its 
real merits. Outward appearance is, indeed, the standard of the many. 
Whatever the children see their parents value or despise, they will value 
or despise themselves. 

If ever a time is to come when appearance shall no longer rule the 
world, or at any rate when reality shall have a humble place by its side, 
children must be supplied with a proper standard at the beginning of 
life. Pride, vanity and bragging, which beget folly and crimes of every 
kind, originate in the early perversion of noble impulses which were 
implanted by the Creator for the purpose of striving after good. And 
as succeeding generations inherit from each other sins and iniquities, 
so the virtues that have been cultivated in humanity, and whose germs 
lie in the first motions of the child's soul, may also be transmitted. 
The whole problem of the development of humanity consists in passing 
from semblance to reality. 



THE CHILD'S FIRST RELATIONS TO MANKIND. 249 

The first step to moral development must thus be the cultivation of 
the senses. Whether these become ministering organs to the spirit, or 
to the animal nature, will to a great extent be decided in childhood. 

As the sense of taste is the first which pronounces itself in the child, 
so his first desires are wont to be associated with eating. Most children 
are little epicures, and it would be unnatural if they were indifferent 
to this earliest pleasure which their senses afford them ; but it is owing 
to bad bringing up that so many children are remarkable for greediness, 
daintiness, and excessive love of eating and drinking. 

There is only one way of opposing a barrier against low desires, and 
that is by developing a capacity for higher enjoyments. We do not 
mean to say that coarse desires and passions can be entirely rooted out by 
following Frobel's system, but that the physical organs will in this way be 
directed to the utmost towards spiritual things, and the higher part of hu- 
man nature made to counteract the lower — the animal. The sooner this 
work is begun, the more completely will it be carried out. Hence 
Frobel requires of mothers that they should rightly discipline their 
children's senses. 

He recommends, for instance, that when children are at their meals 
little songs should be sung to them, or else that some animal, such as a 
dog or bird, should be at liand for them to feed, in order that the work 
of the palate may not engage their whole attention. He would also 
have children encouraged in the practice of giving part of their food to 
others instead of enjoying it all to themselves. But tlien what is offered 
by the child must really be taken if selfishness is to be counteracted, or 
he will soon find out that his sacrifices are only pretended ones. These 
distractions must not, however, be great enough to deprive the child of 
all enjoyment of its food, for that would injure the health. 

This sense of taste must, moreover, to a certain extent be cultivated, 

for all the senses are given by the Creator for a distinct purpose, and 

^require development, or cultivation, that they may fulfill this purpose. 

The child acquii-es its first capacity for distinguishing, through the 
sense of taste ; it is in this way that it first becomes in a measure con- 
scious of what is pleasant or unpleasant, beautiful or ugly. And here, 
as everywhere, we find an analogy between the world of the senses and 
that of the spirit. Frobel points out how the word taste not only de- 
scribes the functions of the palate but also the result of a cultivated 
sense of beauty, and thus connects the two facts together. The chijd 
exercises the power of comparison when it notices the differences in the 
taste of food, and if later he is to become possessed of taste in its sense of 
a feeling for the beautiful, he must learn also to distinguish between 
the more or less beautiful and harmonious, the suitable and the non- 
suitable ; must be taught to shade and group together colors, to weigh 
and measure sizes and forms against one another, and so forth. Fol- 
lowing out the idea that all and everything may be referred back to one 
fundamental principle, Frobel traces taste in its aesthetic sense to the 



250 THE CHILD'S FIRSl RELATIONS TO MANKIND. 

development in the child of the taste for food, and explains in this way 
the fact of their common appellation. It need scarcely be said that it 
is only the earliest germ of {esthetic culture that we are here alluding 
to, and that for the development of the complete fruit, training of the 
most diverse kind is needed. 

One of the little songs in the "Mutter und Koselieder" is called the 
" Schmeck-Liedchen " (Tasting-song), and directs the child's attention 
to the different tastes of different fruits — the sweetness of cherries as 
opposed to the acidness of currants and apples, etc. 

Owing to the misunderstanding of much that Frobel has written and 
said, it has been occasionally supposed that he assumed nothing but 
good qualities in every child. If this were the case, what need would 
there be for education ? All the normal faculties and dispositions would 
unfold of themselves without disturbance. Any one who, like Frobel, 
has spent his whole life in observing children from their very birth, 
cannot be blind to the great differences which are seen even in the 
youngest children — differences not only of individual endowment but 
of impulses and inclinations. Symptoms of the degeneration of nat- 
urally right instincts show themselves even at the earliest age. It is 
not only in the families of great criminals that the heritage of evil is 
transmitted from fathers to children : the proverb " The apple does not 
fall far from the apple-tree," will bear universal application. 

Care must, however, be taken to distinguish between whatever in the 
original dispositions is broadly and universally human — according to 
the divine conception of humanity — and the individual characteristics 
of generations and individuals which appear in the course of the devel- 
opment of mankind, and whose purpose is never far to seek. 

For the transformation of the savage or the natural man into a culti- 
vated being, there must of necessity be a wrestling with inborn disposi- 
tions. AVithout obstacles which call forth exertion moral development 
is unthinkable. At present, however, very little is done to facilitate 
this struggle by exercising the moral forces in the first period of exist- 
ence, as Frobel recommends, by seeing to it that the play of children, 
while satisfying in a natural manner their childish requirements, also 
conduces to their moral well-being and acts as a pleasant stimulus to 
their whole nature. If happiness be secured to them through good 
means — through the right use of their powers — the utmost possible will 
have been done to prevent their seeking it in wrong ways. Unused 
powers are almost invariably the first cause of evil. 

The physical nature should not be kept caged and chained down like 
a wild beast, but should be ennobled by worthy culture. Passions kept 
down by force and terror will only break forth with greater ferocity 
when free scope is allowed them, like a tiger escaping from its cage. 
Passion is force uncontrolled and not directed to its proper object ; and 
this force should not be suppressed, but so ruled and disciplined as to be 
converted into energy for good. In the human organism nothing can 



THE CHILD'S FIRST EELATIONS TO JIANKIND, 



251 



be assumed to serve unconditionally and of necessity a bad or unlawful 
purpose. Where this is the case it is the result of some abuse, and to 
prevent such abuses as much as possible is the problem in question. 
The original intention of all the powers and dispositions implanted by 
the Creator can only be to bring about good in one way or another. 
But if it is the destiny of the human being to attain to moral freedom, 
there must of necessity be rooui for him to err, for tlie choice between 
good and evil nmst be left to him. AVere we so constituted that we 
must of necessity choose what is good, we should be no better than 
machines. Only free choice, and the experience of the consequences 
resulting from our choice, can raise us to the dignity of conscious exist- 
ence, self-knowledge, and moral freedom. 

Faith in the final triumph of good over evil under God's guiding 
providence in the world's development — this was Frdbel's philosphy, as 
it was that of Herder, as it was and still is the philosophy of thousands 
of other thinkers. 

When the child has become thoroughly at home in his immediate 
surroundings, his notice will begin to be attracted by the industrial life 
going on around hiin — by the dilferent pursuits of handici-aftsmen. 
Many of the hand-games with which he will already have grown famil- 
iar, are based on the movements and turns of the hand customary in 
these occupations. The child who has sefen the various processes of 
planing, sawing, threshing, grinding, etc., represented in his games, 
will observe them in real life much earlier and with far greater interest 
than other children who have never had their attention drawn to them. 

The child ought to be initiated into the different functions of human 
life, and therefore, of course, into manual labor of different kinds. 
The imitation of the movements of the hand in different kinds of work 
may be said to be the child's own first work, and at any rate trains his 
principal instrument of work — viz., his hand. These gymnastics re- 
peated, every day at fixed times, may also be treated as the first little 
duties of the child, and so form the introduction to later more serious 
duties, and the foundation of moral culture. 

The imitative games given in the " Mutter und Koselieder" have for 
their object to draw the attention of children to the different qualities 
of things, and especially to the pursuits of human life. 

In the game called " The Joiner," for instance (where the movement 
of the hand represents the action of planing), the child's attention is 
drawn to the high and low sounds produced in planing, by the alter- 
nate long and short drawing out of the plane. The observation of this 
and similar facts will make it easier afterwards to understand the gen- 
eral fact that form and sound, and time and space, correspond to one 
another. (A quick short movement produces high sharp tones ; a move- 
ment slowly drawn out, low deep ones.) 

A variety of examples of long and short, of great and little objects, 



252 THE CHILD'S FIRST RELATIONS TO MANKIND. 

of longer and shorter intervals of time and the different tones connected 
•with them, will gradually prepare the child's mind for the easier appre- 
hension of this idea. The motto to this game is : 

" That all things speak a language of their own, 

The child right soon discovers ; 
B'Ut little heed we what is quiclily known ; 

Lay this to heart, ye mothers." 

It is only by means of contrasts, or distinctly pronounced differences, 
that children can learn to know things individually, and distinguish or 
compare them. In the example cited above, the long and short sticks 
used by the joiner serve as illustrations of the law of contrasts, just as 
a similar illustration is afforded by the measure between long and high 
notes of music But Frobel does not leave these opposites or extremes 
isolated, and expect the child to fill up the space between ; the long and 
short sticks are connected together by others of intermediate sizes, and 
the same with the high and low tones of music. 

This universal principle, the constant application of which is the 
kernel of Frobel's method, is thus brought before children in its sim- 
plest manifestation. If, in their earliest years, they have already 
gained some idea — albeit, a very limited one — of the law of opposites 
and their reconciliation through the observation of the different proper- 
ties of things, the same law will be discovered by them later in moral 
qualities. As, for instance, the story of David and Goliath, in which 
the conquest of skill and mental culture over mei'e rude strength is de- 
scribed, being connected with the game of " The Joiner," the contrast 
between mental and physical greatness is exhibited. 

The hand-game called " The Carpenter " (in which the position of 
the hands represents a wooden house with a balcony) is used by Frobel 
to teach mothers to make their children's home dear and sweet to them 
by the love and happiness which they find in it; whatever the child ex- 
periences in its parent's house, whether love and concord, or quarreling 
and disagreement, that will it bring to its own hearth. Here, in the 
home of childhood, will the foundation be laid either for love of home 
and domestic life, or of that craving for dissipation which seeks its 
satisfaction outside the home. But here, too, may that family egotism 
be developed which is a hindrance to the universal love of humanity. 
It is one of tlie most sacred duties of parents to represent in miniature, 
through the divinely-ordained organization of the household and family 
life, a picture of the organization of the State and of society, into which 
the citizen should carry the lessons learned in his home. The lowliest 
hut may be a temple of humanity if the different members of the fam- 
ily constitute a true human organism, standing in living relations to 
the community and the nation. Education of the right sort will ele- 
vate the instinctive love of kindred into the spiritual love of humanity 
— of humanity in God. But it is only the sacred fire on the altar of 
the home that can kindle this holy flame in the child's heart. 



THE CHILD'S FIRST RELATIONS TO MANKIND. 253 

One of the greatest and most universal delights of children is to con- 
struct for themselves a habitation of some sort, either in the garden or 
indoors, where chairs have generally to serve their purpose. Instinct 
leads them, as it does all animals, to procure shelter and protection for 
their persons, individual, outward self-existence and independence. 
When they have installed themselves in a corner with a few bits of 
furniture of any sort, they delight in fancying themselves alone in their 
own dominion. The instinct of habitation in animals which prompts 
the bird, on its return in the spring, to seek out its old nest, becomes, 
in the human being, the love of home, out of wbich sentiment springs 
the love of country. 

Frobel says : " The whole aftei'-life of the human being, with all its 
deep significance, passes in dim shadowy presentiments through the 
child's soul. But the child himself does not understand the importance 
of these presentiments, these dim strivings and forebodings, and they 
are seldom noticed or attended to by the grown-up people who surround 
him. What a change there would be in all the conditions of life, of 
children, of young people, of humanity in general, if only these warning 
voices were listened for and encouraged in early childhood, and appre- 
hended in youth in their highest meaning. 

Were this the case human beings would certainly understand each 
other better, and, therefore, love each other moretthi-oughout life, and 
hundreds of the best people would not live and die misunderstood. 

THE COAL DIGGERS. 
Deep in the mine below the ground, 
The collier men and boys are found ; 
With strength and skill they work away, 
To bring the coal to the light of day. 
They carry it up that others may burn it, 
And the smith at his forge to his use will turn it. 
For how should we get a knife, spoon, or fork, 
If these honest coal diggers weren't willing to work ? 
With much care and labor they dig the coal out, 
And their faces grow black as they turn it about. 
Come, child, let us give these good miners a greeting, 
For spoons and for forks which we use for our eating ; 
And though with their labor their faces are black, 
Their hearts no true goodness or kindness do lack.* — Amelia Chimey. 

This song is specially intended to teach the value of manual labor, 
and therefore also the importance of the hand. Children should learn 
to honor this member, which is a distinctive mark of the human being, 
as a valuable gift of God and to take care of and cultivate it accord- 
ingly ; and the mothers should inspire them with reverence for the 
roughest and dirtiest work as being necessary for human society. She 
should teach them to respect human beings of every condition, even the 
lowest, if they ar.e faithfully fulfilling their duties ; and not, as is so 

•The " Charcoal Burners " not being an English inBtitution, I ventured to alter the 

BODg. 



254 THE CHILD'S FIRST RELATIONS TO MANKIND. 

often done, represent chimney-sweeps, colliers, or any other laborers 
who become blackened by their work, as objects of terror and disgust. 

It has been reserved to our age to ennoble work, and to show that it 
is not a disagreeable necessity but an essential condition of human life 
and dignity, and thus give the lie to the prejudice which for centuries 
has governed the world, viz., that work — at any rate rough, bread- 
winning work — is a disgrace ; and idleness the true sign of nobility and 
the happy privilege of the upper classes. 

But education has a nobler work before her than even to counteract 
this prejudice — which, moreover, has already in part been overcome; 
she has so to train the rising generation that they may be able to turn 
the mighty industrial impulse of the present day to a higher and worth- 
ier end than mere material gain and material happiness. "With the 
increase of wealth, leisure, and intellectual capacity, there should be a 
widening of the spiritual horizon and a growth of moral power. Pre- 
cisely here, where lies the cause of so much of the immorality of our day, 
may be found also the most effectual lever for the upraising of mankind ; 
and it cannot be set working too soon. 

How are greater honesty and uprightness ever to be infused into 
trade and commerce if, from their very cradles, the children of the peo- 
ple not only hear worldly gain and prosperity held up as the highest 
attainable end of existence, but ai-e even led on by their parents, either 
by example or by direct injunctions, to trickery and fraud of every 
sort? The idealism which has always been considered the special 
characteristic of Germany, and has been held to extend even to a fault, 
is not found there in over-abundance nowadays in any class of society 
— so thoroughly has the mercantile spirit spread everywhere. Striving 
after the real in the most material form, fills up the whole existence of 
the majority of the people, and leaves no room for any higher aim. 

Two of the hand-games which represent a Markt-bude (Market-booth) 
afford an example of how the child's attention may be directed at an 
early age to the negotiations of trade. It is a bad plan to encourage 
children to expect that whenever they are taken into a shop something 
will be bought for them ; greed of possession is apt to be awakened in 
them in this manner. They should be allowed to look round at and 
admire all the various products of human art and industry, and, if any- 
thing does fall to their own share, it should be pointed out to them 
how many different pairs of hands, and what a variety of industrial 
machinery, must have been called into play for the production even of 
a single article ; and how all human labors fit into each other and com- 
bine together to produce the requisites of material existence. Every 
object which calls forth their admiration may be made the occasion of 
representing the different labors of human beings for one another as 
so many signs of mutual love — which, at any rate, is the ideal side of 
commerce. And with this idea is associated the duty of preparing 
the child to take, one day, its own share in the common work. 



THE CHILD'S FIKST EELATIONS TO MANKIND. 255 

One of the greatest educational problems of the day consists, un- 
doubtedly, ill finding out the right means of welding the matai'ial life 
of every-day reality with the higher, spiritual aims which stretch out 
beyond the short span of human existence. 

We are approaching an age in which physical and mental work will 
no longer go on side by side in complete separation, but will be for 
each individual more or less closely bound together. Manual labor re- 
quires, every day, more and more culture and insight of mind; science 
is daily entering into more intimate fellowship with technical and in- 
dustrial works. Perfect health of body, mind, and spirit is only con- 
ceivable if all the powers and organs are set in activity, and a threefold 
equal division of exertion is therefore necessary. The precise mode in 
which this reform is to be carried out matters little, the important thing 
is that the young generation be fully prepared to meet this and every 
other demand made by the regenerating ideas of the present and the 
future. 

One of the most effectual means of calling the ideal side of human 
nature into play is early artistic culture ; and nowadays, when art and 
industry may be almost said to be as twin sisters, a certain amount of 
this culture is necessary for all classes. There are few trades, for in- 
stance, that do not require some knowledge of drawing. Music, too, is 
penetrating more and more into all classes. But in these, as in all other 
branches of human culture, the first grounding is still very deficient, 
and the immense amount of time consequently required in after years 
in order to arrive at even a small degree of proficiency, shuts out many, 
even among the gifted, from these arts. 

In the " Mutter unci Koselieder" we find sign-posts pointing in this 
direction also. 

THE FINGER PIANOFORTE 

is the name of one of the little hand exercises in which the fingers 
moving up and down represent the notes of the piano, and the accom- 
panying voice gives the scale and exercises on the different intervals. 

Motto : " Baby fain woiild catch the sound 
Of the lovely things around, 
For the spirit oft can hear 
Sounds uncaught by mortal ear. 
Early teach thy darling this, 
"W'ouldst thou give him joy and bljss." — Amelia Gurney, 

SONG. 

Now a carol gay, 

We on our fingers play; 

As each finger down we press, 

Hear the tone of loveliness. 

12345 54321 
*La, la, la, la, la; La, la, la, la, la. 



*The numbers represent the notes and their intervals. 



256 THE CHILD'S FIRST RELATIONS TO MANKIND. 



12 3 4 




La, la, la, la; 




2 3 4 5 


5 


La, la, la, la; 


La, 



4 3 2 
la, la, la; 

4 3 2 1 
La, la, la, la; 
5 3 2 12 3 2 
Baby's liands are small and weak; 

4 2 12 3 4 3 

'Tis so small it scarce can speak; 

2 2 4 3 5 3 4 

Yet it always loves to play, 
2 3 4 21321 
Singing songs the live-long day.— Amelia Gumey. 

In addition to the simple songs which serve to awaken and cultivate 
the sense of hearing from the very beginning of life, Frobel also recom- 
mends little glass harroonicas on which chords and simple melodies may 
be played to children. The chief thing always to bear in mind is that all 
impressions should be gentle and gradual, and that no discordant noisy 
sounds should startle the sensitive young organs. For this reason, the 
harmonicas used by Frobel are constructed in such a manner that they 
produce soft tones. The noisy jingling and clapping of keys and other 
articles with which children are wont to be amused in the nursery does 
not certainly tend to the development of a musical ear. The obnoxious 
articles known as children's rattles might also with advantage be re- 
placed by some more melodious instrument. 

Children are generally very fond themselves of trying the sounds of 
different objects, and it is therefore a good plan to produce melodious 
notes for them with all sorts of objects, and to draw their attention to 
the different qualities of sound which different materials produce, A 
number of exercises for the ear, on pieces of metal and other materials, 
have already been introduced into schools for little children with great 
success. 

But here again the first music lessons should be learned from nature. 
In this great school the child should be encouraged to listen to the 
rustling of the wind and water, the twittering of the birds, the buzzing 
of the insects. In one of the illustrations in the " Mutter und Rose- 
lieder " may be seen in close proximity to a player seated at the piano- 
forte, a bird singing in a cage, corn swayed by the wind, a humming 
beetle, and a buzzing bee. One of the greatest singers of modern 
times (Jenny Lind) relates that her musical talent first showed itself 
when she was only four years old, by her habit of sitting for hours at a 
time, as if chained to the ground, imitating all the sounds of nature 
which she heard around her. In later years she could still reproduce 
them all, down to the buzzing of gnats and flies, with the greatest per- 
fection. Humanity, in like manner, made its first musical studies in 
the school of nature, and the first pipe constructed of reeds served also 
to imitate the sounds of nature. 

By the connection of counting with musical notes the child soon 



THE CHILD'S FIRST EELATIOXS TO MANKIND. 257 

learns to perceive the analogy between number and sound, and the 
regularity and system of all movement forces itself on him, even if only 
as an indirect impression. 

But though Frobel would have children surrounded as much as 
possible by an atmosphere of music and harmony, it is very far from 
his ideas to make of them precocious virtuosos, or to give them a one- 
sided musical education, such as hundreds of children are nowadays 
plagued with, to tiie detriment of the rest of their development. 

Song must precede instrumental music, as coming more easily and 
naturally to the child. The learning of notes, which is always a tor- 
ment to children, can be got over without any trouble, and even in 
play, by the use of Frobel's method. This consists in making the 
children mark down the notes as they sing them with counters of the 
colors of the rainbow (like the six balls of Gift I.), on a large ruled sheet. 

The value of the notes will be very quickly learned by means of the 
large cube divided into eight little ones. When a whole note has to be 
sung, the whole cube is left standing before the child ; for two half- 
notes the cube is divided into two halves; and so on. There is no 
easier and more simple w^ay of teaching children what is otherwise so 
difficult for them to acquire, viz., a conception of the value of notes. 
In the first games with balls, too, the chord of color (two primary col- 
ors and one composite one) is connected with the musical chord, and 
there are other exercises of the same kind. 

In order to develop the ear in a natural manner it is necessary, as, 
indeed, it is in all training, to begin in the simj^lest and most gradual 
way ; the little exercises for the finger-pianoforte are a good example of 
the right mode of proceeding. The finger-practice connected with 
these, and the hand-gj'mnastics in the " Mutter und Koselieder " gener- 
ally, are by no means useless in facilitating the mechanical part of all 
instrumental playing. But they serve also to direct the child's atten- 
tion early to the art of music, and to stimulate the will and the desire 
to learn it. The vocal exercises begun in the first years of the child's 
life should be continued without interruption, unless considerations of 
health make it impossible. All children, even musically ungif ted ones, 
may have their voices and ears cultivated to a certain extent. It is 
often falsely assumed of people that they are entirely without musical 
capacity, whereas their deficiency in this respect arises really from the 
lack of any musical culture or stimulus in their childhood. Musical 
geniuses cannot certainly be produced by cultivation any more than 
geniuses of other kinds; but every soundly-constituted child can be 
trained to a certain degree of musical sensibility, and also to some de- 
gree of technical proficiency. And it is most important that all chil- 
dren should receive a greater or less amount of musical training, in 
order that in the absence of any other elevating tastes, they may, at 
least, be capable of the enjoyment of the art which more than any 
other rouses the higher emotions of the soul. 

17 



258 THE CHILD'S FIRST RELATIONS TO MANKIND. 

DRAWING. 

should be made one of the earliest occupations of children, for it is the 
art in which they may the most easily become themselves productive. 
There is scarcely a child who will not at a very early age begin to draw 
shapes in the sand with his fingers, or a piece of stick, or any instru- 
ment that comes in his way ; or else he will sketch with his fingers the 
outlines of tables, chairs, etc. In this way he fixes objects more easily 
in his memory. 

Frobel's plan for assisting the child's instinctive efforts in this direc- , 
tion is to strew some sand on the table, or on a wooden board, and then 
to guide the little hand in drawing the outlines of things in the room; 
in this way the child's eye will accustom itself to compare the real ob- 
jects with the outlines, and to regard the picture as a symbol of the 
object. The hieroglyphics used in the earliest ages of civilization to 
convey ideas were nothing more than outlines of things, from which by 
degrees letters were developed. And with children, too, pictures should 
precede letters, and drawing come before writing, that is to say, outline 
drawing. A child's eye can at first only discern the outlines of things, 
not the filling in and the details. In the drawings of the ancient 
Egyptians, too, we find nothing but outlines, and those generally 
straight ones ; there is very little attempt at curved lines, which mark 
a higher development of the sense of beauty. 

Frobel's method of linear drawing, which forms one of the chief oc- 
cupations in Kindergarten, exactly meets this want, and enoruiously 
facilitates the right apprehension of form, size and number. Before 
the child is able to draw with a pencil, little sticks about the size of 
lucifer matches are given to it, and with these it is taught to lay out 
the principal lines of different objects. In this way its mind becomes 
stored with a variety of shapes and images, and not only is the foun- 
dation thus laid for later artistic culture, but, still more, Frobel's first 
principle of education is carried out, viz., "to train children through 
the encouragement of original activity to become themselves creative 
beings." His of ^repeated saying, " Let it be our aim that every thought 
should grow into a deed," can only be realized by humanity if indo- 
lence is as far as possible suppressed in the cradle. The fact has not 
hitherto been grasped that even in the cradle it is necessary to regulate 
activity ; still less has it been thought possible to do this. Frobel's 
" Mutter und Koselieder " gives the clue to how it may be done, and it is 
for this reason that the book has an important bearing on the whole of 
his system, and that we have given it so much consideration. 

Children should not be content with merely taking in and thus col- 
lecting in their minds a confused mass of forms and images which re- 
main as useless as dead ballast. The impressions that are received 
within should be reproduced without. This, too, is what the child it- 
self wishes to do, only it lacks the means and the power. Any one 
who watches children looking out of a window will see how eagerly 



THE CHILD'S FIRST RELATIONS TO MANKIND. 259 

their eyes follow the people and animals passing in the street ; how 
they notice eveiy little detail of the opposite houses, of the carriages 
and horses, of the dress of human beings. If a slate should chance to 
be at hand a few strokes drawn on it will serve to represent houses, 
animals, men and women, etc.; or vivacious children will try to imitate 
the movements they observe. The imitative instinct is the first spur 
to activity. But even suppose'the child to be supplied with the neces- 
sary materials — which most children are not — he will still be unable to 
reproduce the objects as he would like because he cannot draw. He 
will soon grow tired oif making meaningless linee and scratches, and 
will give himself up to staring vaguely out into the street ; and his 
mind will soon become so inert that he will scarcely distinguish one 
thing from another. 

This is one of a thousand examples of the little help and encourage- 
ment that is given to childish activity, and of the almost systematic 
manner in which natural quickness is stifled, and indolence allowed to 
grow into habit and inclination. Everlasting cramming, first through 
the eyes and ears, then through the understanding — learning, endless 
learning, is almost all that is thought of ; doing is quite an unimportant 
matter ! Frobel's plan, however, is quite the opposite one ; he would 
have nothing seen or heard, nothing learned, without being in some form 
or other given out again — reproduced — and thus made the individual 
property of the recipient. And he puts before us the means of culti- 
vating this artistic activity both by early training in drawing and also 
in construction of all sorts. In his " Menschen Erziehung " he says : 
" The capacity for drawing is as much inborn in a man as the i:)0wer 
of speech, for word and symbol belong to each other as inseparably as 
light and shade, day and night, body and soul." 

The balance between productiveness and receptivity is at present 
completely upset, and requires to be re-adjusted. This will be accom- 
plished when Frobel's method has become recognized, and children are 
taught in their earliest years by means of individual expeiience and 
production, and action is made the foundation and the constant com- 
panion of learning; when, in short, children are made to act according 
to the rules of morality before they can possibly know them ; instead 
of knowing the rules without being able to act according to them. 

With the help of the above examples we have now gone through the 
principal relations in which the child stands to human society, viz., his 
relations to the family and household, to industry, to trade, and to art. 

By means of the exercises of which we have given examples the gen- 
eral powers of thought are called into play, and thus a foundation is 
laid for later study. By familiarizing children with the relations of 
words, number, shape, and size in their most elementary form, and by 
drawing their attention to the causes of the effects perceived by them 
in nature, and their own surroundings {see examples in " Mutter und 



260 THE CHILD'S FIRST RELATIONS TO MANKIND. 

Koselleder") a way is opened up for the latei* study of science as could 
not possibly be otherwise done in the period of unconscious existence. 
Nature, that is to say the whole visible world and the impressions it 
produces, is the basis of all science and all thought, the first awakener 
of the desire for knowledge. Impressions arouse observation, observa- 
tion brings images before the mind and induces comparison, and from 
comparisons result conclusions and judgment. And let it be well re- 
membered that it is in early childhood that the strongest impressions 
are produced on human beings. Agriculture and the care of animals 
"were considered under the head of relations to nature. 

And now will any one still ask, " What does all this matter to the 
young child who understands nothing whatever about the relations of 
human life?" Will mothers still be of opinion that the meaning of 
nursery-rhymes and games is of little importance so long as children 
are amused by them ? 

Those who still think in this way have certainly not grasped the 
leading idea of Frobel's educational theory, viz., that childhood, as 
embryo humanity, must express one and the same nature in all its 
stages of development, however great the difference in degree of devel- 
opment and in mode of expression. The child is the embryo man, i. e., 
is destined to attain to conscious existence. Whatever human society 
has given birth to in the course of its development must have existed 
in embryo in its infancy — States and Churches, and all the institutions 
and organizations of civilized life. These all appeared at first in the 
crudest possible shapes — in fact in childish shapes ; and childhood in 
its " unconscious actions " can do no more than express these begin- 
nings of human existence, just as all young animals exhibit in their 
gambols the mode of life of their tribe. 

Children, of course, do not and cannot understand the philosophy of 
the ^^ Mutter und Koselleder," but the games and rhymes produce on 
them impressions which rouse them to observation of their surround- 
ings. Children will always be receiving impressions of some sort which 
it is the business of education so to regulate that they may contribute 
to right and natural development. 

If this theory of the necessary continuity between the life of child- 
hood and that of manhood be not accepted, and the consequent logic of 
making the first instinctive utterances the starting-point of education, 
Frobel's system must of course lose all its signification, and his ideas 
seem very far-fetched and void of all connection with such little simple 
games as the " Mutter und Koselleder " and many other books of the 
kind contain. Neither in such a case can there be any question of a 
plan of education proceeding continuously from the beginning of the 
child's life ; for if the beginning of life does not correspond to the 
end — if nature, speaking through the child's instinctive utterances, 
cannot be taken as a guide in this matter — we are left without any cer 
tain guide at all, or any starting-point. 



FKOEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL VIEWS. 261 



XI. THE CHILD S FIRST RELATIONS TO GOD. 

' Froebel's principle, that whatever is evolved in the course of the 
development of any human being is inherent in the human race and 
has its root in inborn dispositions, is also applicable with regard to 
man's relations to the highest Being. The belief in God, in the Divine, 
is also inboi'n, intuitive, and can be developed in every child. As all 
spiritual development, all consciousness, has to be evolved from dim, 
undefined feelings and sensations, so is it with the consciousness of God. 
But, also, as no faculty whatever can be developed without stimulus 
from outside and without appropriate means, so with respect to belief 
in God there must come both to humanity and to childhood some com- 
munication, some revelation from without, which shall convert the 
unconscious yearnings into conscious apprehension, supply a channel 
for the feelings, and give a definite form to the vague intuitive faith. 

But how can God reveal Himself to the young child ? Is this possible 
in the first years of life ? It may truly be said that " childish uncon- 
sciousness is rest in God," it is inseparableness from God. But that 
which is inseparable from ourselves cannot become objective to us, for 
we cannot place opposite and outside us what is part of us. The child 
cannot take cognizance of himself — is not as yet a personality ; he is 
one with all that surroun^is him and that he is related to. Hence 
Frobel says, " The child is at unity with nature, with mankind, and 
with God." He lives still, as it were, in Paradise, as in the age before 
discord had entered the world, before there was division between man's 
outward and inward nature. He cannot be expected to have anything 
like religion, for the essence of religion is striving after union with 
God, and we do not strive after that which we already possess. But at 
the moment when the child first sins against what is good, that is, 
against God, the unconscious union ceases, and division or discord 
begins. 

With nothing and nobody in the visible world is the child so closely 
united as with its mother, and therefore Frobel gives as motto to one 
of the little games in the " Mutter und Koselieder " (the one called 
Kinder ohne Harm), of which the accompanying illustration represents 
a mother praying by the side of her sleeping children : 

" Believe that by the good that's in thy mind 

Thy child tq good will early be inclined; 

By every noble thought with which thy heart is fired, - 

Thy child's young soul will surely be inspired. 

And canst thou any better gift bestow, 

Than union vfith. the Eternal one to know ? " 

The mother's moods communicate themselves instinctively to the 
child : for instance, she is frightened by something, and the child, 
without knowing the cause of her alarm, at once takes fright also. 



262 THE CHILD'S FIRST RELATIONS TO GOD. 

This immediate rapport and connection between them shows itself in 
the most different ways, and is at any rate not more wonderful than 
the influence which the mother's moral dispositions and affections exer- 
cise on her infant even before its birth. In like manner may the 
mother's piety affect the character of her child both before and after 
its birth. 

" The most delicate, the most difficult, and the most important part 
of the training of children," says Frobel, " consists in the development 
of their inner and higher life of feeling and of soul, from which springs 
all that is highest and holiest in the life of men and of mankind ; in 
short, the religious life, the life that is at one with God in feeling, in 
thought, and in action. AVhen and where does this life begin ? It is 
as with the seeds in spring : they remain long hidden under the earth 
before they become outwardly visible. It is as with the stars of heaven, 
which astronomers tell us have shone for ages in space ere their light 
has fallen on our eyes. 

We know not, then, when and where this religious development, this 
process of reunion with God, first begins in the child. If we are over- 
hasty with our care and attention the result will be the same as with 
the seedling which is exposed too early and directly to the sun's heat, 
or to the moisture of rain. If, on the other hand, we are behindhand, 
the consequences will be equally fatal. 

Wiiat then must education do ? It must ^oceed as gently and gradu- 
ally as possible, and in this respect, as with all other kinds of develop- 
ment, work first only through general influences. As the child's physi- 
cal condition is healthily or injuriously affected by the badness or 
goodness of the air which it breathes, so will the religious atmosphere 
by which it is surrounded determine its religious development. 

Example does not work only like so many facts or actions inciting 
to imitation : quite young children cannot understand these facts ; as 
such, they have no relation to them and no meaning for them, and in 
most cases they are not able to imitate them. But the character of 
their surroundings will act, as it were, magnetically upon them, the 
influence of moods and affections will pass directly into their souls. 

How, then, at this tender age can religious feelings be cultivated? 
Music will always find its way to the human spirit, and will produce 
impressions even on quite little children. Children, savages, and, 
indeed, all uncultivated human beings, are much more easily moved to 
cheerfulness by lively music, and to earnestness by serious music, than 
are more reasonable and thinking people, who do not give themselves 
up to every passing impression. Divine service without music would 
be very cold and barren. Almost every one must occasionally have 
experienced the power of fine church music, or of the simplest choral 
on an organ, to rouse him out of even the most irreligious mood, or to 
stir in him a spirit of devotion. And in the same way influences may 
be brought to bear on young children which shall at any rate corres- 



THE CHILD'S FIRST RELATIONS TO GOD, 263 

pond to their dim innate sensations, which are tlie precursors of 
religious devotion. Frdbel recommends mothers to sing choral melo- 
dies to their children on their going to sleep and on their awakening. 
To sing children to sleep is already a universal custom, but there should 
be a more frequent use of sacred music, in singing or in playing on an 
instrument, such as the harmonica, which Frobel recommends. 

Next to the influence of music comes that of gesture and expression, 
the earliest of all languages, and, therefore, that which appeals most 
readily to chihken. Gesture is the direct expression of the soul's mood ; 
animals, savages, and children, who are incapable alike of dissimulation 
and of self-control, invariably make use of this language. Frobel would 
have the gesture which is expressive of inward collectedness, viz., the 
folding of the hands, applied to children when going off to sleep — as 
soon, that is to say, as their little hands are capable of the action. 
Prayer is the highest expression of the inner gathering up of all the 
powers of the soul, and demands the deepest concentration of spirit, and 
the outward symbol or gesture of folding together the hands, which ai'e 
now no longer to be occupied with exteriial things, is in true correspon- 
dence with the inner meaning. And here again Frobel's theory of the 
analogy between physical and spiritual activity is borne out. 

At first the mother should pray at her children's bedside as they go 
to sleep, and as soon as they themselves can speak they should repeat 
the prayers after her. But if this exercise is not to degenerate into a 
mere parrot-like repetition without understanding, the child must be 
able to concentrate its spirit, and the woids of the prayers must be in 
close relation to the child's experiences and feelings. The mother 
should be able to draw out these feelings. She should recapitulate to 
him, for instance, when he is lying in his little bed, and all around is 
quiet and peaceful, the pleasures and the blessings which he has 
enjoyed during the day, and excite in him a feeling of gratitude 
towards all those who have contributed to his happiness, and finally 
lead his mind up in thankfulness to the great Giver from whom all 
good things come. In such a mood as this, the simple words, "Dear 
Father in heaven, I thank thee ! " will be a real prayer. 

If the child has been guilty of any naughtiness during the day the 
recapitulation of all the little events of the day will help him to detect 
how he came to commit the fault, whatever it may have been. The 
sorrow expressed by his parents at his naughtiness will make him 
unhappy, and when the mother says: "You have grieved us, your 
parents, very much, but you have gi-ieved your Heavenly Father much 
more ; you must pray to Him for forgiveness, and ask Him to help you 
to be a better child," the childish petition for forgiveness will be a true 
prayer, a real motion of the spirit. Frobel relates of one of his pupils, 
a boy of five years old, that as one evening he (Frobel) was saying his 
prayers with him, the boy asked him to repeat another prayer, in which 
were the words, " when I am naughty, forgive me, etc.," and that when 



264 THE CHILD'S FIRST RELATIONS TO GOD. 

he came to this passage, the child's voice trembled, and became scarcely 
iutelligible, thus showing plainly that he was conscious of some naugh- 
tiness committed during the day. 

If only more pains were taken in education to cultivate the right and 
sensitive feelings of children, or at any rate not to put out of tune the 
pure tone of their conscience, how great might be the gain to morality ! 

There is scarcely any way in which greater harm may be done than 
by allowing the holy name of God to be desecrated on children's lips 
through meaningless babbling, as in the mechanical repetition of 
prayers learned by rote, which is part of the order of the day for children. 
Jt is hoped that children will be made pious in this way, but the very 
opposite result is produced, for it becomes a habit with them to approach 
their Maker through outward forms only, without that inner uplifting 
of the soul, that outpouring of the heart before God, which alone con- 
stitute true and effectual prayer. 

Modern charitable institutions, those especially in which the relig- 
ious element is made the principal one, fail most lamentably in this 
respect. All reasonable people are fully aware that Bible history, the 
book of Genesis, the Ten Commandments, the Catechism, and all dog- 
mas whatsoever, are entirely beyond the comprehension of children be- 
tween the ages of two and six. Nevertheless, in the majority of such 
institutions all these subjects are taught to young children, and though 
it is true that an attempt is made to treat them in a childlike manner, 
it would be better if it were realized that in no form whatever can they 
be made intelligible to young children. 

The idea which — most often unconsciously — lies at the root of this 
practice is that the relations of the human race to God, and to the 
highest things, should be presented to the child in historical sequence 
(that of a monotheistic philosophy, moreover, be it noted) from the 
creation of man to his redemption by Christian truth. That in this 
way the child will become acquainted with the continuity of human 
development in the past and the present. And all this must be done 
because the development of children corresponds to the development of the hu- 
man race. 

Now this is the very idea, as has over and over again been pointed 
out, which forms the pivot of Frdbel's whole system ; but he has dis- 
covered a system by means of which the child is prepared for future 
understanding of religion, and by which his own religious feelings are 
awakened. And this is all that is possible in earlj^ childhood ! In- 
stead of presenting children, in the old-fashioned way, with a com- 
pletely formulated system of truth, Frdbel aims at awakening and 
cultivating their organs, so that with the help of fitly corresponding 
impressions from without, religious belief and aspirations may grow 
and develop in their souls ; in no other way can religion ever become a 
real possession, a distinct and living conviction. 

I once heard Frobel say : " If the Creator of the world were to say 



THE CHILD'S FIRST RELATIONS TO GOD. 265 

to me, ' Come here, and I will show to you the mysteries of the uni- 
verse ; you shall learn from me how everything hangs together and 
w^orks ; ' and, on the other hand, a grain of sand wore to say, ' I will 
show you how I came into existence,' I should ask of the Creator to let 
me rather go to the grain of sand, and learn the process of development 
from my own observation." ^ 

In these words Frobel's deepest conviction is expressed, that it is only 
by his own individual activity and exertions, rising gradually from the 
least to the greatest, that man himself can be developed. 

It is high time verily that religion should come to be looked upon as 
the inalienable property of each human being, as, indeed, beseems the 
full-grown and conscious soul, if the irreligiousness of our day is not to 
increase and spread. And whence springs this want of religion but 
from the fact that the majority of human beings bring with them out 
of their childhood nothing more than a religion learned by rote, which, 
owing to the want of understanding of its dogmas, kills instead of giv- 
ing life. 

One example from a pauper institution out of hundreds that might 
be given will here suffice to show that children do not understand the 
religious instruction that is imparted to them. 

It was the evening of Christmas day, and the festival was being cel- 
ebrated, as usual, with a Christmas-tree. The children were all assem- 
bled together, and a considerable number of parents and of patrons of 
the institution were also present. After the customary singing out of 
hymn-books little adapted to the child len's capacity, stories of the 
birth of Jesus Christ, of the adoration of the magi, of Christian doc- 
trine, of the sacrificial death of Christ, etc., were related to the chil- 
dren, and printed questions were asked them to which they gave 
answers learned by heart. Then a little girl of five years old was 
mounted on a chair to represent the mistress, and a learned disputa- 
tion, got up by heart, was carried on between her and the other chil- 
dren, in which the doctrine of redemption through the death of Christ, 
the proofs of the divine truths of the Bible, the sinfulness of human 
nature, etc., etc., were discussed. At the end of the proceedings I asked 
a child of four years old, whose birthday we were celebrating, and 
received at once the answer, "I don't know." I then asked the same 
question of a child of six, who answered doubtfully, " My birthday, 
mother's birthday," and seemed trying to guess whose birthday it could 
be. To a variety of questions relating to the subjects which they had 
just been hearing and talking about, which I asked of the elder chil- 
dren, the answer, " I don't know," was almost always given with great 
inquiring eyes ; or else something so utterly wide of the mark that it 
was easy to see they understood nothing at all of what had been said. 
During the whole proceedings the children were either half asleep, or 
else restless and inattentive, and taken up with admiration of the 
Christmas-tree and its load of pretty things. We shall have a word or 



2GS 



THE CHILD'S FIRST EELATIONS TO GOD, 



two to say later, as to the manner in which Frobel would have this 
festival turned to account for children. 

It stands to reason that we do not intend to find fault with such of 
the hymns, narratives and prayers used in these institutions as are 
adapted to the stage of development of the children. To all such 
Frobel has given a place in his Kindergartens. 

Nor is it our intention to criticise this or that tone of religious 
thought which may give its color to education, but simply to draw at- 
tention to the unnatural mode of proceeding as contrasted with Frobel's 
thoroughly natural system. 

The most striking proof that he has hit upon the right plan lies in 
the fact that all sensible mothers who have either thought for them- 
selves or been gifted with a strong and true educational instinct, have 
long acted on a similar one. Were it not that such 'mothers form a 
very decided minority, Frobel's instructions might be considered super- 
fluous. But no more than in the political world one would think of 
assuming that a few good sovereigns and reigns made laws and consti- 
tutions unnecessary, can a few rational and gifted mothers do away 
with the necessity for principles and methods of education. Wherever 
unerring management or administration, and universal application is 
in question, the thinking, conscious mind must draw up a code of rules ; 
a right code for education can only be arrived at by deducing from the 
nature and character of children a systematic plan capable of applica- 
tion in all directions. 

No psychologist has yet made the child's soul the subject of such 
profound research as has Frobel, nor so closely drawn the parallel be- 
tween the childhood of the individual and that of humanity ; it is due 
to him, therefore, that even the smallest details should not be cast aside 
as useless rubbish until their inner meaning and principles have been 
sufficiently tested. 

In considering the first relations of the child to nature we pointed 
out how the impressions and the observation of nature should lead him 
up to the Creator. . In the chapter headed " The Child's Utterances," 
we glanced at the analogy which exists between the religious awaken- 
in" of the child and that of infant humanity. By all the impressions 
that come to him through nature, whether pleasing or terrifying, de- 
lightful or awe-inspiring, the vmdeveloped human being is unmistaka- 
bly pointed to a Higher Power on which his existence depends. The 
language of nature responds to that inner yearning of the soul which 
compels man to search for the Author of his own being and of every- 
thing that he perceives around him. This acknowledgment (at first 
only a vague foreboding) of God as the Creator, or the revelation of 
God in the visible world, must not only precede the recognition of God 
in the historical development of humanity, it must also be experienced 
by the child. Children have no point of comparison whereby to con- 



THE CHILD'S FIRST RELATIONS TO GOD. 267 

nect the narrative of the history of creation witli the knowledge of the 
Creator. Neither are tire unaided impressions which they receive for 
themselves from the free life of nature sufficient. The only way in 
which they can be led to know God as Creator is through their own oc- 
cupations in natui'e, through the cultivation of the soil, on a miniature 
scale — in short, through personal activity ind experiences, as humanity 
in the beginning of its existence found out God. 

The following example taken from a Kindergarten will help to illus- 
trate our meaning. Two little girls of four and five years old shared 
between them a flower-bed in the Kindergarten, and in this bed they, 
like the rest of the children, had sown a few peas and beans. Day by 
day they would grub up the earth with their little hands in order to 
see why the seeds did not come up. With disconsolate faces they used 
to look at their little neighbors' beds, where tiny green seedlings were 
seen peeping above the ground. It was explained to them that if they 
wished for the same result in their beds they must leave off raking up 
the earth and wait patiently for the seeds to germinate. And now on 
their daily visits to their gardens the children might be seen exercising 
patience and self-control, while refraining from grubbing the earth up. 
At last one morning they were found kneeling down by their flower- 
beds and gazing with wonder and delight at a few little green blades. 

This process of the vegetable world had already gone on freqi;ently 
under their eyes, but hitherto unnoticed by them, because they them- 
selves had not taken the personal part in it of sowing and watching. 
It cannot be often enough repeated that in early childhood nothing 
will make a lasting impression in which the child itself does not, in 
some way or other, tijce an active part, in which its hands are not more 
or less brought into play. And it is chiefly for this reason that Frobel's 
hand-gymnastics are of such importance. Children always require 
practical demonstration, material proof, to enable them to apprehend 
abstract truth. The truth does not thereby cease to be abstract and 
spiritual ; scientific truths proved by physical experiments must still be 
apprehended by the mind, although through the medium of the eyes. 
The more truths of every kind are presented to children in a coi-poreal 
or symbolic form, so much the greater will their power of spiritual or 
abstract apprehension be in after yeai's, for they will have vivid images 
in their minds, and not merely a stock of statements learned by heart. 
Again and again we must repeat that in early childhood all instruction 
which is conveyed solely in words is as good as thrown away. The 
human mind in the first stage of its development must have concrete 
demonstration ; ideas must be presented to it in visible images. 

The universal mind of humanity developed itself in like manner. 
Before understanding and learning could extend to details and thus 
become exact science, it was necessary that the influences of the sur- 
rounding world should awaken general conceptions, which reproduced 
themselves outwardly in broad-featured j)ictures and forms, and in the 



268 THE CHILD'S FIRST RELATIONS TO GOD. 

whole mode of existence ; as, for instance, in the allegorical world of 
gods and demi-gods, in the mythology of the Greeks and Romans. 
Not till the mind of humanity had matured itself could it grasp the 
pure abstract idea of the universal, of God in the soul and in truth. 

The two children at their flower-bed found themselves face to face 
with a wonder of nature ; only yesterday there was nothing visible, 
and to-day numbers of little green leaves were sprouting above the 
ground. The following dialogue ensued : " You see, now that you 
have waited patiently, the seeds have come up ; or was it you who 
made them grow ? " The children exclaim " No I " " Who, then, has 
done it ? " " The good God." " Yes, the good God made the sun 
shine so that the earth became warm, and warmed the seeds ; and then 
He sent dew and rain to soften the earth, and the soft, damp earth 
softened the hard seeds so that the little germs could push their way 
out — as you saw had happened to several of those that you took up out 
of the ground. The good God has done this to give you pleasure, as 
He does in so many other ways. Will you not try to give Him pleas- 
ure, too? How can you do it?" The children answered, " If we are 
very good," and the youngest one exclaimed, in a tone of the deepest 
conviction, " I will do something to please God ! " 

Later in the day, when the children were employed in plaiting strips 
of colored paper, and one after another mentioned the names of the 
people for whom their works of art were intended, this little one re- 
plied to my question, for whom was hers destined, " I am going 
to give m'ne to God!" However trifling this incident may seem it 
was an entirely spontaneous expression of child-nature, and serves to 
show how easily the higher emotions may be awakened in children by 
means of material facts. For the development of religion the teaching 
of visible phenomena must come before that of words ; the Creator 
must first reveal Himself in His visible works before He can be appre- 
hended as the invisible God of our spirits. 

The majority of children, especially in pauper institutions, are never 
encouraged to observe nature, indeed, scarcely ever have a chance of 
receiving impressions from nature ; would it not contribute far more to 
their religious development to take them out into the fields and lanes, or 
even only into a garden, and show them the Creator in His works, than 
to weary them with histories of the creation, of the fall of man, and all 
such narratives and instruction as it is customary to present to children, 
even in some of their games ? 

The preceding remarks apply to the earliest years of childhood. A 
little later on it is desirable to teach children so much of the Bible 
history as is suited to their capacity ; and this is done in Kindergartens. 

But until they can form for themselves some conception of what 
history is, viz., a continuous series of events in human life (both of 
individuals and nations), until then nothing more must be communi- 
cated to them from the history of mankind than broad simple facta 



THE CHILD'S FIRST RELATIONS TO GOD. 269 

■which are in direct affinity with their powers of observation. As with 
their affections so with their understanding, they can only start from 
themselves; everything outside them must be associated with their own 
experiences; their own little past history with the events that mark it 
is the only standard they can go by. But this must be made objective 
for them — they must see it represented in pictures, and we must make 
clear to them their relations to events and objects. 

This it is that Frbbel aims at in his " Mutter und Koselieder," which 
he intended to be the first Story and History Book for children — i. e., 
the history of their own shoi't past. The illustrations contain scenes 
which occur in the life of almost every child — or, at any rate, will occur 
if Frobel's system be followed. As, for instance, a child catches sight 
of a weather-cock ; it is put into its bath ; it feeds the chickens ; picks 
flowers ; looks at a bird's-nest ; watches different handicrafts ; plays 
the hand-games with its brothers and sisters, or little friends ; sings 
little songs or draws pictures in the sand ; its mother prays by its bed- 
side ; takes it out shopping with her, etc., etc. 

The history of a child's own little life is easily fastened on to these 
and such like pictorial representations. " That's a picture of you," one 
may say to him : " there you are going with your mother to see a bird's- 
nest, or a poor woman, or the coalman in the wood;" and so forth. 
The most marked features of the child's life, which, according to Fro- 
bel's idea, should be fixed in the mother's mind, must be woven into 
the pictures. The frequent repetition of these little events, in which 
all the members of the family, all the people and things known to the 
child, find their place, and in which constant reference is made to God's 
fatherly love and care, will give the child, by degrees, a picture, on a 
scale suited to his powers of apprehension, of the little bit of life that 
lies behind him. 

" Let a clear picture of their past lives," says Frobel, " be given to 
children, let them learn to see themselves mirrored in it, and when they 
are grown up the light which illumines the way behind them will help 
them to see clearly the road that lies before them ; childhood will be 
seen to be a connected part of all the rest of life, and a distinct concep- 
tion of the childhood of humanity and of its connection with the rest 
of history will be possible." 

In this manner there will be a real progression from the near to the 
distant. The child's mind will easily pass on from its own little history 
and that of its family and surroundings to the history of its nation, 
which must first be presented to it in its broadest facts, embodied in 
single marked personalities. Not until the mind has been led out of 
the present, first into its own past and then into that of its race and 
people, will it be in any measure prepared to be introduced to the his- 
tory of the childhood of humanity as presented to us in the Old Testa- 
ment. Children can quite well wait till they are eight or nine years 
old to begin this study. 



270 THE CHILD'S FIRST KELATIOXS TO GOD, 

What other idea is there at the bottom of this more or less traditional 
custom of making sacred history the principal subject of instruction in 
childhood, than that of connecting the facts of Divine revelation first 
■with the history of the human race and then with that of one nation — 
the Israelites ? But even on the supposition that there is anything in 
the child's soul to which these universal ideas and truths, gradually 
laid hold of by the human race, correspond, the events of a distant past, 
which, however much affinity they may have with the child's nature, 
because themselves the outcomes of a childish age, appear, neverthe- 
less, in unfamiliar form and garb — these events, 1 say, cannot be made 
in the least intelligible to children until their mental capacities are so 
far developed as to enable them to compare unfamiliar facts with those 
that are familiar to them in tlieir surroundings. The fact is, that 
without giving the matter any thought, people assume an inner con- 
scious life in the young child which is impossible at this early period 
of existence. But this inner life must, little by little, be called forth, 
in order that in it the child may find the point of contact between him- 
self and the history of his race, in which the Divine revelation is pre- 
eminently embodied. This revelation must have appealed to the soul 
of the child itself before the most important point of contact v.ith the 
universe can be felt. 

The moment of such an inner revelation is like a flash of lightning, 
a holy shower of emotions, which cannot be called up at will, and 
which is generally hidden from every eye. An influence of nature, a 
great joy, or the first anguish of the soul, a look, a word, a mere noth- 
ing, will often recall it, and it disappears again like lightning ; but the 
impression has been made, the Divine revelation has taken shape in the 
child's soul. For example, a child of three years old who was being 
ill-used by its nurse wanted to complain to its mother, but the latter 
being absent the child exclaimed : " Father in heaven, tell her ! " This 
was, perhaps, its first cry for help to God. The injustice of man drives 
the human soul to seek a higher refuge. 

All that education can do in this respect is to furnish opportunities 
and means of preparation for this sacred moment, and to see that its 
impression be not effaced. For this purpose Fiobel's educational sys- 
tem, the beginnings of which are contained in the " Mutter umd Kose- 
licder" is specially adapted ; there is scarcely a single song in the book 
which does not, indirectly, at any rate, point to God as the all-loving 
and all-protecting father. The child's physical, mental, and spiritual 
natures are all fused in one, and must, therefore, be nourished with 
food suited to this threefold nature. 

The " Mutter und Koselieder," for instance, makes use of the game 
Brod Oder Kuchen Z»af^•en " Baking bread or cakes," in the following 
sense. When the child goes through the action of baking he is told 
that the baker cannot bake the bread unless the miller has ground the 
flour ; that the miller cannot grind the flour unless the farmer brings 



THE CHILD'S FIRST RELATIONS TO GOD. 27l 

him corn, and that the farmer will not have any corn unless God makes 
it grow, etc. Every little incident can be used to refer all things to 
God as their first cause. 

Yes, every occupation which fixes the child's attention forms part of 
the general preparation for that closest kind of attention which we call 
concentration, and without which religious devotion is impossible. And 
because the attention of young children cannot be kept fixed for any 
length of time unless their hands are also employed, every one of the 
hand-employments in Frobel's system helps at the same time to culti- 
vate the power of concentration. 

And all work, too, all exercises which awaken the active powers 
•which form the capacity for rendering loving services to fellow-crea- 
tures, will help to lay the groundwork of religion in the child. The 
awakening of love goes before that of faith : he who does not love can- 
not believe, for it is love that discovers to us the object or the being 
worthy of our faith. Loving self-surrender to what is higher than our- 
selves — to the Highest of all — is the beginning of faith. But love must 
show itself in deeds, and this will be impossible unless there be a 
capacity for doing. A child can no more be educated to a life of 
religion and faith without the exercise of personal activity than heroic 
deeds can be accomplished with words only. 

The religious difficulties of our day will never find their solution till 
Christianity has been made a religion of action as well as of profession, 
and to effect this we need a generation trained for Christian action. 

If we consider what in point of fact is done during the first six years 
of life to promote religious development we are obliged to confess, 
either nothing, or else, we may almost say, worse than nothing. 

Now this period of the first six or seven years is regarded not only 
by Frobel, but also by many other educationalists before and after him, 
as the one in which the germs of all knowledge and action, i. e., of the 
whole of civilized human life, are set. Art and science cannot be prac- 
ticed before the requisite organs have been called into play. So long 
as the child is incapable of any higher sensations than those which re- 
late to his inmiediate wants, of any degree of inner concentration, or 
of the slightest effort to lift himself out of and beyond what most 
closely surrounds him, so long there can be no question for him of re- 
ligious practice, of devotion and self-surrender to the Highest. That 
for which the child has yet no organs of reception does not even exist 
as far as he is concerned. And while this is the case, of what use 
would it be to him to know every syllable of Holy Writ and all the com- 
mandments of the world ? We might as well at once adopt the method 
of a certain sect of Christian fanatics, who place Scriptural pictures be- 
fore tlie cradles of children only a few months old, and read out to them 
the corresponding passages from the Bible, with the idea that the in- 
fants will thus be early initiated into the truths of Christian revelation. 



272 THE CHILD'S FIRST RELATIONS TO GOD. 

The only grain of truth at the bottom of all these customs is just 
■what Frobel has fastened upon and turned to a right instead of a mis- 
taken use : viz., that the sensitiveness of young children to impressions 
from their surroundings should be used to assist in their develoi^ment. 

We have already seen what are Frobel's ideas with regard to tlie re- 
ligious training of children, what importance he attaches to the use of 
simple sacred music, and to the mother's example of reverence and de- 
votion ; how he would have the prayerful spirit awakened by the sym- 
bolic gesture of folding the hands, and prayer itself taught as soon as 
speech begins, to which the singing of hymns should soon follow ; and, 
added to all this, how much he relies on the hallowing influence of im- 
pressions from nature combined with suitable illustrations from the 
lips of the mother or other guardians. 

Is not this enough during the first five or six years of a child's life? 

Some people, no doubt, will think this too much, but to such we can 
only say that whatever nourishment the child's own nature, physical, 
mental, or spiritual, requires, it must be good for it to have, and it can- 
not have too soon ; and any one who rightly understands observing 
children will not fail to discover amongst their other wants a necessity 
for the knowledge of God, and this necessity, being the highest of which 
the human soul is capable, should before all things be satisfied. 

On the other hand, there are those who will require some more direct 
and positive allusion to Christianity and Church w'Oi'ship and doctrines. 
Now, although all people in any degree acquainted with the nature of 
children must allow that during the first six or eight years there can be 
no question of any real apprehension of doctrinal religion, that whilst 
the development of the organs is still going on, nothing more can be 
done than to awaken religious feeling and implant purely elementary 
and general conceptions, at the same time the youngest children cannot 
fail to be influenced by the doctrinal tendency of their surroundings ; 
and here the matter should be allowed to rest during the first six years 
at any rate, for the soil must first be prepared before the seed can ger- 
minate. The Kindergarten system dispenses with all doctrinal teach- 
ing and confessions of faith, and if we look at God's method of dealing 
in the education of mankind, do we not see that there was a gradual 
preparation of the world for the reception of Christianity? 

At the same time, we would not be understood to say that all direct 
allusion to Church matters and (in Christian families) to Christianity, 
should be entirely excluded during these first few years. Frobel's 
" Mutter und Koselieder " is intended to embrace the germinal points of 
all human culture, and Church worship and doctrine cannot, therefore, 
be altogether ignored in the book ; but in this, as in many other cases, 
the allusions are so slight that to outward observers they are almost 
imperceptible, and are only truly intelligible to those who see clearly 
the connection between the little and the great, between the physical 
and the spiritual in the human soul, as clearly and distinctly as Frobel 
saw through the mind and spirit of the child. 



THE CHILD'S FIRST RELATIONS TO GOD. 273 

The example in the " Mutter und Koselieder " which first directs the 
child's attention to Church worship is called " — 

THE CHUECn DOOR AND WIKDOW. 

IMotto ; Wliere harmony in unison is shown, 
Alike in form and tone made known, 
The infant mind doth readily embrace it, 
And in its deepest mysteries doth trace it. 
To guide thy darling's earliest perception, 
Of this high unison to form conception ; 
And thus of joy to catch the brightest gleams, 
So hard a taslc will not be as it seems. 
Yet, for thyself, in all thy works take care, 
That every act the highest meaning bear ; 
Thus Shalt thou lead it to that haven blest, 
"Wherein its infant heart shall be at rest ; 
And nought can e'er deprive it of the benison. 
Of being ever with itself in unison. 
If this belief thou to thy child impart. 
It aye will thank thee with a joyful heart ; 
Think not 'tis yet too young this truth to prize. 
Within its little heart a magnet lies, 
Which draws it on to union's highest joys, 
And shows how severance sweetest bliss destroys. 
Wouldst thou unite thy child for aye with thee. 
Then let it with the Highest One thy union see.— Amelia Gumey. 

SONG. 

Behold this window of clear glass. 

Through which the blessed light doth pass, 

And see the high-arched door below, 

Through which into the church we go. 

But those who fain would enter there, 

Must come with reverence aud care, 

For all that deeply moves the heart. 

Within these sacred walls has part ; 

Here all our high desires are stilled. 

Our deepest longings are fulfilled ; 

We hear of God, so good and true, 

And of the blessed Christ-child too; 

And those dim yearnings are made plain, 

"V\1iich oft with wonder fill your brain ; 

When you behold the heavens wide, 

Or in your parents' love confide. 

And you, my child, shall go one day 

To hear the deep-toned organ play : 

Lo, lo, la; la, lu, lu, la ! 

While of bells the joyful peal 

Doth unceasing joys reveal ! 

D'ng, dong, bell. 

Ding, dong, bell. 

Through our ears it moves our hearts, 

Oh what gladness it imparts ! 

La, lu, la ; la, lu, la, la ; la, lu, lo. — Amelia Gumey. 

The mother, with her two or three-year-old infant on her lap, sits at 
the window on Sunday morning, points to the church which the people 
are flocking into, and makes the child represent with his hands the 

18 



274 THE CHILD'S FIRST BELATIONS TO GOD. 

shape of the church window. She then sings to him the above choral, 
at the end of which the pealing of bells is imitated. 

The following example will show that something like g, devotional 
mood may really be produced, even in so young a child, through the 
influence of sacred music, and of its mother's frame of mind. 

In Frdbel's room one day there were assembled a number of children 
between the ages of one and a half and four years, all busily occupied 
with the Kindergarten gifts. A visitor who chanced to come in ventured 
to question Frbbel's assertion, that a feeling of reverence could be 
called up in even the youngest of these children. In order to prove 
his statement, Frobel called on some of his older pupils to sing the 
choral given above, and it was curious to see how one after another the 
children put down their playthings and listened to the music with wide 
open eyes, and an expression of almost holy reverence on their little 
countenances. Now it is certain that no result of the kind is ever pro- 
duced by the kind of religious instruction which is so common in insti- 
tutions, and even in families, and which, with the best desire to produce 
piety, only tends to make sacred things wearisome to children. 

As is signified in the motto annexed to the " Church Window," 
Frobel sees the first direct expression of the child's religious instinct in 
its eager desire for fellowship. In the chapter on " The Child's Utter- 
ances " it was pointed out that the irresistible impulse of children to 
hasten to any spot where they see a number of people collected to- 
gether in earnest consultation, or where a crowd is assembled for a 
common object, is only part of the strong necessity of their nature to 
be in sympathetic union with those around them. It is, so to say, a 
surrender of their being to something outside their own personality, to 
a universal power which is beginning to make itself daily felt in their 
souls. And what else is true religion but a complete surrender of self 
to the Highest Being? 

It is, however, necessary that the Being to whom one thus surrenders 
one's self should be loved. Before a child can love the invisible God he 
must love visible human beings. For the child, as once for humanity, 
God must become man ; and this must first be through the child's parents. 
The first condition of all religion is that we should come out of the 
narrow circle of egotistic self-love ; and therefore love for its parents, 
is for the child the beginning of love for God. 

In all primitive religions sacrificial offerings play a principal part, 
and it is because the offerings signify the giving up of self, of the per- 
sonality. If the child is mr.de to feel the consequences of such sur- 
render in the piety of its parents and others, in their manifest union 
with God, the unconscious union of his own inner life with the High- 
est will gradually develop into a greater or less degree of consciousness. 
His own dormant religious faculties will awaken if he sees similar 
faculties actively expressed by those around him. 

Children thus brought up in a truly religious atmosphere, accustomed 



THE CHILD'S FIRST RELATIONS TO GOD. 275 

to refer every duty fulfilled towards man, every service of love, every 
trifling action of daily life, to God as the highest power, who requires 
of us good in every shape, such children will when they are grown up 
make their lives a continuous active expression of Christian love, and 
not merely carry Christianity about on their lips. 

First, then, God must become more or less objective to the child 
through nature, and then He must be personified for him in man. 

Just as mankind needed the personification of the Divine in a com- 
plete and perfect man whom it might follow as its pattern and ideal, 
so the child needs a personal example. But a full-grown perfect being 
such as Christianity recognizes in Jesus Christ as man, cannot serve as 
a pattern for children. They must have placed before them an ideal 
suited to their stage of development — a Divine Child. Hence Frobel 
would have hung up in Kindergartens and in nurseries pictures of the 
child Jesus on his mother's lap, in the Temple, etc. All the good quali- 
ties of children he would have associated in their minds with the Holy 
Child, and when they do wrong he would have them reminded that 
when Jesus was a child he was always obedient, thankful and loving. 

In this way, by means of the facts and events of their own lives, 
inward and outward, associated always with Jesus as a child, children 
will acquire a perfect living ideal of childhood by which they will be- 
come accustomed to measure themselves, and with the aid of suitable 
Bible narratives they will be gradually and naturally initiated into the 
central truth of Christianity — of God made manifest in man — without 
having their understandings bewildered with dogmas, which can only 
be grasped by the mature mind. Ideas of which the child can form to 
itself no conception are worse than useless to him, for they obscure his 
mental vision and thus act injuriously on his development. 

Pictures and facts appeal to the childish imagination, and Frobel 
would have the religious instruction of children based also on this prin- 
ciple. For this purpose he revived the old custom of exhibiting to 
children on Christmas evening a pictorial representation of the birth of 
Christ. Middendorf used often to tell how impressive this festival was 
wont to be at Keilhau, when, at the end of the long room, filled with 
brightly-lighted Christmas-trees and presents of all sorts for the chil- 
dren, a transparency would all at once appear, representing the birth of 
the Divine Child surrounded by green pine branches ; how Christmas 
hymns — most of them written by Frobel himself — were then sung ; 
and how Frobel used himself, to fetch the poor women of the village 
with their youngest children, so that these too might, as he used to put 
it, have a " distinct impression " of the meaning of Christmas. To the 
older children it was explained in simple language that this festival was 
to remind people of the birth of Jesus Christ, who had redeemed them 
from sin and error and brought back great happiness to the world. 

It all depends upon the manner in which religious impressions are 



276 THE CHILD'S FIRST RELATIONS TO GOD. 

conveyed to children whether they will have a sacred influence on them 
in the present, and be a blessed recollection in the future. 

The profound truths of the Gospel are far beyond the comprehension 
of children, but for this very reason the preparation of their minds to 
receive them later cannot begin too soon. All truths v?hich take shape 
in the world are the blossoms of plants whose seeds were sown thou- 
sands of years ago, and have gone on germinating for centuries before 
they could spring up in the mind of humanity and bear flowers and 
fruit. And the same process which has gone on in the life of human- 
ity goes on in that of the individual, beginning in infancy. All ideas 
and conceptions, and, therefore, also all religious conceptions, have 
their origin in the fiirst impressions made on the senses, in the first 
childish imaginations, the first observations and comparisons of ob- 
jects in the outer world. All the faculties of the soul must be culti- 
vated up to a certain point if the human spirit is to become capable of 
union with the Divine Spirit. 

Our hopes for a new and living conception of Christianity rest on 
our children. If we can only preserve to them the freshness and sim- 
plicity of their early innocence, their hearts will remain open to the 
pure and childlike spirit which breathes in the writings of the Old and 
New Testaments, and Bible truths will no longer be to them as petri- 
fied fossils of a bygone age. If they have grown up in loving fellow- 
ship and community, which is the true church for children, they will 
be able to carry out the deepest meaning of the Gospels, viz., the 
brotherhood of men, and the conception of Divine humanity and human 
divinity will become a reality to them. 

The right form of a church service for children has yet to be discov- 
ered, but the Kindergarten meanwhile offers all the necessary elements 
for the puri^ose. The churches of grown-up people are certainly not 
the places for children. If momentary feelings of devotion are pro- 
duced in their minds by the general stillness, the music, the number of 
people collected together, these cannot last, and are quickly followed 
by distraction and weariness, for the service is too long for the chil- 
dren's powers of attention and beyond their understanding. 

And this does not only apply to children before the age of ten ; even 
at a later age their powers of religious apprehension are not on a level 
with those of grown people. A boy of eleven years old, on being once 
asked what was the subject of a sermon he had just heard, answered, 
" The reconciliation of Christ," because the preacher had frequently 
alluded to the work of reconciliation. When the boy was fm-ther 
asked the meaning of this word, he could not answer at all. 

So it is in the majority of cases : children's minds are crammed full 
of expressions with which they connect no meaning. 

We give as a last example from the " Mutter and Koselieder " the 
hand-game called 



THE CHILD'S FIRST KELATIONS TO GOD, 277 



THE FOOT BRIDGE. 

Motto : " Let thy child in play discover 
How to bridge a chasm over, 
Teach it that human skill and strength 
■Will always find some means at length 
Things most widely severed to connect — 
Union, where it seemed most hopeless, to effect.' 



Along the meadow flows a brook, 
A child stands by it with longing look ; 
He sees bright flowers on the other side. 
But can't get to them — the stream 's so wide. 
" On your back, take me over," he cries to a duck, 
" Those lovely flo\yers I want to pluck ! " 
■ Then up came a man with a wooden plank, 
He laid it across from bank to bank ; 
Safely along it the little boy ran, 
Crying — " Thank you, oh thank you, you kind, clever man!" 

If by such and similar examples chiklren have been made to under- 
stand the meaning of connecting together or reconciling things that 
are separated ; if, according to Frobel's system, they have been con- 
stantly occupied in their own little labors in connecting (or reconciling) 
opposites, the application of the word " reconciliation " to visibly sepa- 
rated objects will have become quite familiar to them, and it will not 
be difficult to explain to them later the meaning of the Chi-istian doc- 
trine ; especially as they will also have become familiar, through a va- 
riety of examples and applications, with the analogies between the 
visible physical world and the spiritual one. 

That such teaching by analogy or parables is necessary for the com- 
prehension of spiritual truths is shown by the frequent use of it in the 
Gospel itself. But to many of our readers this comparison between the 
connecting together of physically separated things and the union or 
reconciliation of individual imperfect men with God through the per- 
fect and Divine man, will seem as far-fetched as the analogies in other 
cases that we have quoted. It is, however, the fate, not only of new 
theories, but also of new embodiments of old theories, to produce the 
impression of exaggeration and eccentricity, and so it must be with 
Frobel's theory of the analogy between the outer and the inner world 
and between physical and spiritual impressions, until by frequent repe- 
tition and practical application it has become familiar to the world. 

Any one who observes the present methods of bringing up children, 
and considers what it is that the latter really want, must be of opinion 
that there is need for greater attention to the beginnings of moral de- 
flection and the early cultivation of religious feeling. 

Childi-en can no more become religious by their own unaided powers 
than they can become anything else that is desirable for them. The 
fact that early religious teaching has hitherto been conducted in a mis- 



278 THE CHILD'S FIRST RELATIONS TO GOD. 

taken and senseless manner does not prove that it cannot be done in a 
right and profitable way. This, however, is beyond all question, that 
unless education, and especially early education, be established on a 
right religious basis, the next generation will be the most godless that 
has ever lived on earth, more dissatisfied and melancholy even than 
the present one, and just as little able to solve the great problems of life. 

Veritable progress for mankind as a whole is unthinkable if religion 
be left out of account. The extension of material knowledge, the 
widening of man's relations to nature and to humanity in social and 
communal respects necessitates a corresponding expansion in our rela- 
tion to God and all that is highest. It is still not sufficiently under- 
stood, that while on the one hand religion and Christian truth must in 
their essential character remain always the same, our apprehension of 
them must continually increase and expand until we come to realize 
their connection with every department of life. 

Not until men have gained for themselves the recognition of an all- 
pervading omnipresent God, a firm central point round which their 
whole being will revolve, in which laws, politics, science, art, and all 
social endeavors will culminate, not till then shall we see a regenerated 
society which, cemented together in love, will realize the true concep- 
tion of humanity, or convert into a living reality the Christianity 
which is now cramped and disfigured and deadened by church system. 
It is grievous to see how much outward forms and dogmas still take 
the place of true religion of the heart. It is not, however, by rational- 
ism and irreligiousness that the degenerate Christianity of modea-n 
times can be conquered, but by a new generation which, itself filled full 
with the true spirit of the Divine Teacher, shall let this regenerating 
power stream forth through society. 

The religious conflict of the present day has its meaning and its use, 
and will bring forth fruit in the future ; but it must be kept as much 
as possible removed from our children. If they are to be capable in 
time to come of restoring harmony to a world of discord, of re-adjusting 
balances and getting rid of contradictions, their young spirits must be 
left undisturbed to strengthen and develop, and must learn to soar up 
in love and enthusiasm to the Infinite, and find their rest only in the 
Highest. Short of this there can be no real religion, however much the 
intellect may learn to speculate concerning spiritual things. True re- 
ligion is the continuous action of a whole life — a striving after God in 
all and everything. 

It is the high office of mothers to consecrate their children to this 
life-service, and Frobel offers them his " Mutter und Koselieder " as a 
guide to this sacred task. 



FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL VIEWS. 279 



SUMMARY VIEW OP FROEBEL's PRINCIPLES. 

The leading ideas of Fiobel's educational system may be summed up 
in the following statements : 

1. The task of education is to assist natui-al development towards its 
destined end. As the child's development begins with its first breath, 
so must its education also. 

2. As the beginning gives a bias to the whole after development, so 
the early beginnings of education are of most importance. 

3. The spiritual and physical development do not goon separately in 
childhood, but the two are closely bound up with one another. 

4. There is at first no perceptible development except in the physical 
organs, which are the instruments of the spirit. The earliest develop- 
ment of the soul proceeds simultaneously with, and by means of that 
of the physical organs. 

5. Early education must, therefore, deal directly with the physical 
development, and influence the spiritual development through the exer- 
cise of the senses. 

6. The right mode of procedure in the exercise of these organs 
(which are the sole medium of early education) is indicated by nature 
in the utterances of the child's instincts, and through these alone can a 
natural basis of education be found. 

7. The instincts of the child, as a being destined to become reason- 
able, express not only physical but also spiritual wants. Education 
has to satisfy both. 

8. The development of the limbs by means of movement is the first 
that takes place, and, therefore, claims our first attention. 

9. The natural form for the first exercise of the child's organs is 
play. Hence games which exercise the limbs constitute the beginning 
of education, and the earliest spiritual cultivation must also be con- 
nected with these games. 

10. Physical impressions are at the beginning of life the only possi- 
ble medium for awakening the child's soul. These impressions should 
therefore be regulated as systematically as is the care of the body, and 
not be left to chance. 

11. Frobel's games are intended so to regulate the natural and in- 
stinctive activity of the limbs and senses that the purpose contemplated 
by nature may be attained. 

12. Through the gradual awakening of the child's will this instinct- 
ive activity becomes more and more conscious action, which, in a further 
stage of development, grows into productive action or work. 

13. In order tliat the hand — which is the most important limb as 
regards all active work — should be called into play and developed from 
the very first, Frobel's games are made to consist chiefly in hand- 



280 SUMMARY. 

exercises, with which are associated the most elementary facts and ob- 
servations from nature and human life. 

14. Inasmuch as in the human organism, as well as in all other or- 
ganisms, all later development is the result of the very earliest, all that 
is greatest and highest springs out of the smallest and lowest begin- 
nings, education must endeavor to emulate this unbroken continuity 
of natural development. (Frbbel supplies the means for bringing about 
this result in a simple system of gymnastic games for the exercise of 
the limbs and senses ; these contain the germs of all later instruction 
and thought, for physical and sensual perceptions are the points of de- 
parture of all knowledge whatever. 

15. As the earliest awakening of the mind has hitherto been left to 
chance, and the first instinctive activity of childhood has remained un- 
comprehended and unconsidered, there has of course been no question 
of education at the very beginning of life. It was Frdbel who first dis- 
covered a true and natural basis for infant education, and in his 
" Mutter und Koselieder " he shows how this education is to be carried 
on and made the foundation for all later development.. 

It is, therefore, essential that the principles and methods laid down 
by Frobel should be attended to at the very beginning of education, if 
full benefit is to be derived from the Kindergarten. 

The ti'aining of mothers, and all who have the management of 
young children, in the application of Frobel's first principles of educa- 
tion, is consequently the starting-point for the complete carrying out of 
Ms system, and consequently, too, of immense importance. 

The little, seemingly insignificant games and songs devised for the 
amusement of infants are easy enough for girls of the lowest degree 
of culture to master. The true development of women in all classes 
will best be accomplished through training them for the educational 
calling, seeing that nature has pre-eminently endowed them for this 
work. Simple receipts for the management of health (and, above all, 
the practical application of them in the care of children) are also within 
the grasp of women of all degrees of culture. By placing such instruc- 
tion within the reach of women of all classes the first step will be taken 
towards the full and perfect training of the female sex, of all who have 
the care of children, of all future mothers in all ranks of society, for 
their educational vocation. 



CHILD LIFE ACCORDING TO CHRIST. 

BY REV. STOPFORD A. BROOKE. 



"FOR OF SUCn IS THE KINGDOM OF GOD."* 

It is a happy thouglit that the children who climb upon our knees are fresh, 
from the hand of God, living blessings which have drifted down to us from 
the imperial palace of the love of God, that they still hear some of the faint 
notes of the music of God's life, still bear upon their faces traces of the 
uncreated light. Heathen sage and Christian poet have enshrined the 
thought, each according to his knowledge, and though there is no proof 
of its truth, yet we cannot neglect as quite fruitless in wisdom so wido^ 
spread an intuition. It is vain to sneer at it as poetry, in vain at least for 
some of us. He cannot scorn this thought who feels, as his children's 
faces light up at his coming, not pleasure only, but an inner sense of 
gratitude that things so pure, so close to God, should give to him, with 
the sense of his unworthincss deep within, so much and so unsuspectingly. 
Their trust seems to carry with it something of the forgiveness of Heaven. 
The man sees the tolerant tenderness of God his Father in the child whom 
He has sent him — that his little one believes in him, bestows on him the 
blessing of an ever-renewed hope. 

Nor can he scorn this thought who on philosophic grounds believes 
that all living beings are held in God, are manifestations of part of the 
Divine thought. He knows that a phase of that idea which God has of 
the whole race is incarnate in his child, that his child is destined to reveal 
it, that this is the purpose for which God sent it into the world. There- 
fore hidden within this speck of mankind he recognizes a germ of the 
Divine essence which is to grow into the harvest of an active life, with a 
distinct difference from other lives. 

And if, born of these two thoughts, a sadness succeeds the first touch of 
joy and gratitude, when the parents think how soon the inevitable cloud 
of life will make dim the heavenly light; how long, how evil, may be the 
days of their child's pilgrimage; how far he may retreat from God — yet, 
we who believe, not in a capricious idol of power, but in a just Father 
who loves — we who hold that there is nothing which is not in God, can- 
not distrust the end. Our children are in His hands; they will some time 
or other fulfill the work of revealing God ; they must, for God does not let 
one of His thoughts fail. If all life be in God, no life ever gets loose 
from God; it is an absolute imperative of the philosophy which denies 
that anything can be which is not of God, that nothing can ever finally 
divide itself from Him. Our children, like ourselves, are already saved 
by right. Years of what we call time will be needed to educate them 

* Child Life.—K Sermon preached in St. James' Chapel, London, by Rev. Stopford A. 
Brooke, Chaplain-in-Ordinary to the Queen. " Suffer little children to come unto me, and 
forbid ihem not: for of such is the kingdom of God."— Luke xviii, 16. 



282 



CHILD LIFE-BROOKE. 



into unioD with God in fact, but that end is as certain, if God exist, as 
God's existence. 

This thought of what I may call the divinitj'- of childhood is still further 
supported by the exquisite relation in which Christ put Himself to chil- 
dren. The heart of woman will never forget that beautiful wayside story 
■where He consecrated the passion of motherhood. The religious spirit 
will never cease, when disturbed by the disputes of the worldlier life, to 
remember his words when, bringing the disciples back to the sweetness of 
early charity. He took a child and placed it in their midst. The soul dis- 
tressed with questions of belief remembers with a touch of peaceful pleas, 
ure how Christ recalled his people to the natural simplicity of faith, to 
that higher and deeper religion which lives beyond the wars of the under- 
standing, when He said, " Whoso shall receive one such little child in My 
name receivcth Me." 

And when mistaken religious persons press hard upon the truth and 
tenderness of the relation of parents to children, and bid the one look 
upon the other as children of the devil— corrupting with their poison the 
sweetest source of feeling in the world and the love which of all human 
love links us closest to the heart of God, we fall back in indignant delight 
upon the words of the Saviour: "Take heed that ye despise not one of 
these little ones; for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always 
behold the face of My Father which is in heaven." 

And once more, when we think that God revealed Himself in the child- 
hood of the Saviour, the thought of the divinity of childhood becomes 
still more real. To us it is much, in our stormy and sorrowful life, to 
think of Christ in his manhood conquering and being made perfect 
through suffering; but when we wish to escape into a calmer, purer air, 
we turn from the image of our Master as "the man of sorrows and ac- 
quainted with grief," dear as that is to us, and look with infinite pleasure 
on the earlier days at Nazareth, imagine Him playing in the meadow and 
rejoicing in the sunlight and the flowers, taking his mother's kiss, and 
growing in the peace of love — and so learn to dream of God, revealed not 
only as the Eternal Father, but, in some not unworthy sense, as also the 
Eternal Child. 

It is a thought which bathes all ovr children in a divine light.. They 
live for us in the childhood of Christ; they move for us and have their 
being in the childhood of God. 

In the directest opposition to all this— to the poetic instinct of Greek 
and Christian poetry and philosophy, to the natural instincts of the human 
heart, to the teaching and acts of Christ, to the revelation of God in child- 
liood — is the dreadful explanation which some have given of original sin. 
Children are born, we are told, with the consummate audacity of theologi. 
cal logic, under the moral wrath of God, are born children of the devil. 
I have already denied this from this place, and stated instead of it the fact 
— that we are born with a defective nature which may and does lead to 
moral fault, but in itself it is no more immoral than color-blindness. I 
have said that this imperfectness is the essential difference of human 
nature; that which makes man differ from God, from angels, from brutes; 
that which makes him, so far as we know, the only being in the universe 



CHILD LIFE— BROOKE. 



283 



capable of progress. It is a defectiveness distinctly contemplated, dis- 
tinctly initiated by God, "who wished for a being in Ilis universe the hist- 
ory of which should be the attainment of pcrfectncss through struggle and 
defectiveness. As such, the defectiveness of our children, as well as our 
own, has in it a thought which glorifies it. We see in iti lirst develop- 
ments, and in the way in which the spiritual element meets it, the begin- 
ning of that noble struggle in which the soul will have the glory and 
pleasure of advance, the delight of conquest as well as the misery of fail- 
ure ; the interest of a great drama, and the final resurrection into freedom 
from weakness, error, and restraint. 

Whatever way we look, then, upon our children, our first feeling should 
be reverence for the divine within them, infinite desire to help them to 
recognize that divine idea, and to express it through life, in a noble form. 
This should be the basis of education. If it were, we should have less 
bad men and bad women. 

For we should remember that children on whom we can make almost 
any impression we please, so ductile is their wax, will become what they 
are believed to be, will reverence their own nature when they feel that it 
is reverenced, will believe that they are of God, and know and love him 
naturally when they are told that God is in them. 

But the other basis of education has an irresistible tendency tO' degrade 
them, and it only shows how near they are to God that it does not degrade 
them more. What conceivable theory is more likely to make them false, 
untrustful, cunning, ugly-natured, than that which calls them children of 
the devil, and acts as if the one object of education was, not to develop 
the God within them, but to lash the devil out of them? Let them think 
that you believe them to be radically evil, and the consequences be on 
your own head. You will make them all you think them to be. Every 
punishment will make them more untrue, more fearful, more cunning; 
and insteid of day by day having to remit punishment, you will have to 
double it and treble it, and at last, end by giving it up altogether in des- 
pair, or by making your child a sullen machine of obedience. 

Instead of trusting your child, you will live in an atmosphere of con- 
stant suspicion of him, always thinking that he is concealing something 
from you, till you teach him concealment and put lies in his mouth and 
accustom him to the look and thought of sin; and then — having done this 
devilish work and turned the brightness and sweetness of childhood into 
gloom and bitterness, and having trodden into hardened earth the divine 
germs in his heart — what happens? You send him into the world already 
a ruined character, taught through you to live without God in his soul, 
without God in the world, to believe in evil and not in good. 

Do not complain afterwards if he disappoint you, if he turn out a cruel, 
or a dishonorable, or a miserable man. It is you who have made him so, 
and God will have a dreadful reckoning with you. " I mistook," you will 
say, as you tremble before His judgment-seat; "I did it for the best." 
Alas! there will be no possible excuse for you, but this, which links you 
with the slayers of Christ, ' ' Father, forgive me, for I knew not what I did. " 

Teach your children to believe in the goodness of his nature, in his 
nearness to God. And this leads me to the first characteristic of child- 
hood, faith; faith, the quality whose outward form is trust. 



284 



CHILD LIFE-BROOKE. 



It speaks well for the beauty of the human quality of faith that it is so 
lovely a thing to us when we see it pure in childhood. No pleasure is so 
great as that which we receive when, in their hours of joy, stiii mor j when 
sorrow or disease attack them, we see the light of our children's iailh in 
us shining in their eyes. 

It speaks well for the spiritual power of this quality that it has on us 
such winning force. "We grant to it as we recognize it, what we s:i0uld 
grant to notliing else — we cannot hold back from its often mute request 
anything which is not wrong for us to give. It overcomes the wor'd in 
us: it leads us to make a thousand sacrifices. It charms our weary iiic, it 
attracts and softens our sated heart. It makes us feel our own rejation to 
God, and what it should be, for it is its earthly image. The p- .rents who 
have not encouraged and loved this quality in children towards them- 
selves, will have but little of it in their own relation to God. They will 
give no pleasure to the Divine Father, they will have no natural power 
with Him. 

Having this faith, the child is, as long as it is unspoilt by us, i'carless, 
and fearless under the difficulties of a vivid imagination, not the high im- 
agination which composes images towards an artistic end, but the untu- 
tored quality which works without an impulse or an aim. On the child's 
receptive heart everything makes a strong impression, numberless images 
arc received. And at night, when no new impressions are made by out- 
ward objects, these images rise up a thronging crowd in the brain. And 
the work of the brain, just beginning to learn itself, and as yet under no 
ordinance of the will, composes, combines, contrasts these images into a 
thousand fantastic forms. 

Spoil the child's faith in the world being good to it and pleasant; 
frighten it with falsehoods to keep it quiet, tell it a single lie, and let it 
lose a grain of its divine trust in you; show yourself violent, unreasonable, 
harsh, or cruel, and every one of these images may take a frightful form. 
What it has suffered from you, the distrust it has gained from you, will 
creep like a subtle element of fear into the creations of its fancy, and 
terror is born in its heart. 

Again, this unquestioning faith makes the child think that everything is 
possible, and as many things are possible which the fear which reasons 
deters us from attempting, the child often does feats which astonish us. 
So nations in their childhood, and men inspired by intense faith, have 
believed in themselves and done things called miraculous. 

It is unwise to attack too rudely even this self confidence of childhood. 
Lessen the child's faith in his own powers, and you will check the growth 
of that happy audacity which in boyhood and youth wins afterwards so 
much — that easy daring and self-confidence which, when it is limited by 
good manners, is so charming in society. 

Nature herself will teach him humility soon enough, and you had better 
let him find out his limits in this direction for himself. She has a way of 
teaching which is irresistible; which, though it stops audacity with firm- 
ness, yet shows that she is pleased with the audacity; which points out a 
way of conquering herself. And in the child's relation to his home and 
society, you yourself can check the fearless self-confidence when it degen- 
erates into impertinence or thoughtlessness, not by harsh rebuke, but by 



CHILD LIFE-BROOKE. 2S5 

appealing to the natural impulse of affection. The limit placed by saying 
and enforcing this— "Do nothing, my child, say nothing, which will give 
pain to others " — is not a limit whigh will crush the natural boldness of 
the heart. It is a limit which appeals to love, and the desire to be loved 
is an element in the child's nature as strong as faith. It will be seen to be 
natural and reasonable; it will be accepted. 

Again, as to this faith in its relation to God, how does it take a religious 
form? The child's religious faith is, fii'st, faith in you— mother, father, 
guardian; to early childhood you are God. And when you come to give 
a name to the dim vision of the growing child, and call it God, it will 
grow into form before him, clothed with your attributes, having your 
character. If the child learn to worship an idol — a jealous, capricious, 
passionate God — it is not his fault half so much as yours. What were 
you to him when he was young? Were you violent, sulky, exacting, sus- 
picious, ruling by force and not by love? Whatever you were, his God 
in boyhood will wear your shape and bear your character, and he will 
grow like the character he contemplates. As he grows older, he needs 
more direct teaching. He asks who is God, what is His character, what 
His will. For He cannot but desire to know these things, through a 
vague curiosity, if through nothing more. For by and by, God touches 
him. Spiritual impulses, slight, but distinct, come to him in hours of 
temptation; voices make themselves heard in his heart; passion renders 
life exulted, and in the more wakeful state it genders, the germs of spirit- 
ual life push forth; nature speaks her dim message in some lonely 
moment on the hills or in the wood, and he is conscious of an undefined 
want. What has he to fall back on then? What ideas have you given 
him to which he may now fly for solution of the growing problem? what 
forms of thought which the new powers of spiritual faith and love may 
breathe upon and make a living God? The whole spiritual future of his 
youth then trembles in the balance. Fathers and mothers, you do not 
know often what you are doing; what misery, what bitterness, what hard- 
ness of heart, what a terrible struggle, or what a hopeless surrender of the 
whole question you have prepared for your child by the dismal theology 
and the dreadful God, and the dull heaven, which you have poured into 
the ear of childhood. Long, long are the years, before the man whose 
early years have been so darkened can get out of the deadlj'' atmosphere 
into a clear air, and see the unclouded face of God. 

So far for the faith of childhood ; on its love I need not dwell, the same 
things apply to it as apply to faith ; but on its joyfulness and the things 
connected therewith we speak as we draw to a conclusion. 

The child's joy comes chiefly from his fresh receptiveness. His heart 
is open to all impressions as the bosom of the earth is to the heavenly airs 
and lights. Nothing interferes to break the tide of impressions which roll 
in wave on wave — no brooding on the past, no weary anticipations of the 
future. He lives, like God, in an eternal present. The world is wonder- 
ful to him, not in the sense of awaking doubts or problems, but as giving 
every moment some miraculous and vivid pleasure, and it is pleasure in 
the simplest things. His father's morning kindness makes him thrill ; his 
food is to him the apples of paradise. The sunlight sleeping on the grass. 



286 



CHILD LIFE-BROOKE 



the first fall of snow in winter, the daisy stars he strings upon the meadow, 
the fish leaping in the stream, the warm air which caresses his check, the 
passing of the great wagon in the street, the swallows' nest above his 
bedroom window, the hour of rest at night, and his prayer at his mother's 
knee — all are loved lightly and felt keenl}^, and touch him with a poetic 
pleasure. And each impression, as it comes, is clothed in simple words — 
words which often, in their spontaneousness, their fearless unconscious- 
ness, their popular quality, their fitness for music, have something of a 
lyric note, something of the nature of a perfect song. For the chdd lives 
in a world of unconscious art. He is fearless in his delight, and when he 
is happy he trusts his own instincts as revelations: and if we could get 
back in after-life something of this, we should all be artists in heart. One 
knows in the highest genius that, united with manhood's trained power of 
expression, there is an eternal clement of childhood. Take, for example, 
the perfect song, such as the songs of Shakespeare were. They were 
spontaneous, sudden, popular, simple, and able to be sung. But above 
all, they derive their magic and winning power from the poet's fearless- 
ness, from his trust in, and his delight in his instinctive emotions. The 
songs of other poets are spoiled by their fear of their simplicity being 
called absurd by the public, by that doubt whether the thing is quite 
right, that thinking about thought, that shyness of one's own feeling 
■which come from want of that unconscious trust in his rightness and de- 
light in it which a child possesses. The kingdom of a perfect song, the 
kingdom of a perfect work of art, is like the kingdom of heaven, one 
must enter it' like a little child. 

" Fostered alike by beauty and by fear," fear which has its thrill of joy, 
the child grows into union with the world, and into consciousness of his 
own heart, till "the characters of danger and desire" are impressed upon 
all outward forms, and day by day more vividly that great enjoyment 
swells which makes 

The surface of the universal earth 

With triumph and delight, with hope and fear, 

Work like a sea. 

And in quieter moments, calmer pleasures are his — pleasures of love given 
and received, pleasures of childish friendship, pleasures of first successes 
in learning and in new pursuits, pleasures of obscure feelings just touched, 
not understood, which make in after-life 

Those recollected hours that have the charm 

Of visionary things, those lovely forms 

And sweet sensations which throw back our life, 

And almost make remotest infancy 

A visible scene, on which the eun is shining. 

We look back on them with reflection, but there was no reflection, or but 
little, then ; the life was natural, unthoughtf ul, only now and then, amid 
the full movement of unconscious pleasure, flashes of deeper thought 
arose and passed away, a faint touch of something to come, a weight 
within the pleasure, a dim sense of sublimity or calm, a suspicion of what 
duty meant, just came and were forgotten, but did not die. They went 
to form the heart, to build up that which was to become the man, and 
they arose afterwards in maturer life to impregnate and to elevate the mind. 



CHILD LIFE -BROOKE. 287 

We spoil all this divine teaching of God and nature by forcing the child 
out of his unconsciousness into self-consciousness, by demanding of him 
reflection, by checking the joy of his receptiveness by too much teaching, 
too much forcing. Let him remain for a time ignorant of himself, and 
abide in his heavenly father's hands; let him live naturally, and drink in 
his wisdom and his religion from the influences which God makes play 
around him. Above all, do not demand of him, as many do, convictions 
of sin, nor make him false and hysterical by calling out from his imitative 
nature deep spiritual experiences which he cannot truly feel. Let him 
begin with natural religion, leave him his early joy untainted, see that he 
knows God as love and beauty and sympathy. It is horrible to anticipate 
for him the days, soon enough to come, when sorrow and sin will make of 
life a battle, where victory can only be bought by pain. 

But if we keep these early days pure and joj^ful, full of the blessedness 
of uninjured faith and unconscious love, we give to the man that to which 
he can always look back with hope, and use for the kindling of effort and 
aspiration. For the dim remembrance of their pure and powerful pleas- 
ure, the divinity within them, have virtue to recall us in after-life, when 
high feeling is dulled with the cares of this world, to loftier and better 
thoughts; to nourish and repair imagination when its edge is blunted by 
distress and doubt ; to exalt the soul with hope, that though innocence is 
lost, yet goodness remains to be won ; to tell us, in the midst of the tran- 
sient and the perishable, that our life is hidden in God, and our spirit at 
home in immortality. It is true that inimitable innocence, that perfect trust, 
that belief that nothing is impossible, that fresh and honest freedom, that 
divine joy, cannot be the blessing of the man. He has been driven out of 
Eden, and the swords wave forever over the gate and forbid return. But 
there is a nobler paradise before us, the paradise of the soldier spirit whicli 
has fought with Christ against the evil, and finished the work which the 
Father has given him to do. There the spirit of the child shall be min- 
gled with the power of the man, and we shall once more, but now with 
ennobled passion and educated energies, sing the songs of the fearless 
land, children of God, and men in Christ. 

It is true that, tossed with doubt, and confused with thoughts which go 
near to mastering the will, we are tempted to look back with wild regret 
to the days, when children, we dreamt so happily of God, and lived in a 
quaint and quiet heaven of our own fanciful creation, and took our dreams 
for realities, and were happy in our belief. But after all, though the 
simple religion is lost, its being now more complex does not make it less 
divine; our faith is more tried, but it is stronger; our feelings are less 
easily moved, but they are deeper; our love of God is less innocent, but 
how much more profound ; our life is not so bright in the present, but its 
future is glorious in our eyes. We are men who know that we shall be 
made partaker's of the child's heart towards our Father, united with the 
awe and love and experience of the man. And then, through death, again 
we enter the imperial palace whence we came. We hear the songs and 
voices which of old we heard before we left our home, but we hear them 
now with fuller, more manly comprehension; we see again the things 
which eye hath not seen, but our vision pierces deeper. We worship God 
with the delight of old, before we went upon our Wander- Year, but the 



288 CHILD LIFE— BROOKE. 

• 
joy is more stately, for it is now the joy of sacrifice; and all things now 
are new to us, for we have gi'own into men, and we feel the power and 
joy of progress. But never, as we look to Him who led us all our life 
long until this day, shall we lose the feeling of the child. Through all 
eternity the blessing of the child's heart shall be ours. In the midst of 
our swiftest work, in the midst of our closest pursuit of new knowledge, 
in the midst of all the endless labor and sacrifice of the heavenly life, we 
shall always turn with the sense of infinite peace to God, and say, Our 
Father, suffer a little child to come to Thee. 



THE GREEN PASTURES. 
I walk'd in a field of fresh clover this morn. 

Where lambs play'd so merrily under the trees. 
Or rubbed their soft coats on a naked old thorn, 

Or nibbled the clover, or rested at ease. 
And under the hedge ran a clear water brook, 

To drink from, when thirsty or weary with play; 
And so gay did the daisies and buttercups look. 

That I thought little lambs must be happj'- all day. 
And when I remember the beautiful psalm. 

That tells about Christ and his pastures so green, 
I know he is willing to make me his lamb. 

And happier far than the lambs I have seen. 
If I drink of the waters, so peaceful and still. 

That flow in his field, I forever shall live ; 
If I love him and seek his commands to fulfill, 

A place in his sheep-fold to me he will give. 
The lambs are at peace in the fields when they play. 

The long summer's day in contentment they spend; 
But happier I, if in God's holy way 

I try to walk always with Christ for my friend. — Mrs.Duncan. 

THE CHILD'S DESIRE. 

I think, as I read that sweet story of old, 

"When Jesus was here among men. 
How He called little children as lambs to His fold, 

I should like to have been with them then. 
I wish that His hands had been placed on my head. 

That His anns had been thrown around me, 
And that I might have seen His kind look when He said, 

"Let the little ones come unto me." 

But still to His footstool in praj-er I may go, 

And ask for a share in His love ; 
And if I thus earnestly seek Him below, 

I shall see Him and hear Him above, 
In that beautiful place He has gone to prepare 

For all that are washed and forgiven; 
And many dear children are gathering there, 

"For such is the kingdom of Heaven." — Mrs. Luke. 



FROBEL'S SYSTEM IN CONGRESS OF PHILOSOPHERS. 

SESSION HELD AT FRANKFORT-ON-THE-MAIN, IN OCTOBER, 18G9. 



INTRODUCTION. 

The Congress of Philosophers first met at Prague, on the call of 
Prof, von Leohnardi, of that University, on the 26th of September, 
and continued in session till the 4th of October, 1868.* There 
were fifty-five members present, and one hundred more responded 
in letters of sympathy, representing the prominent chairs of phi- 
losophy in European Universities. It had a section of Pedagogy in 
which, among other phases of education, Frobel's system and the 
Kindergarten were discussed. The meeting decided to hold a sec- 
ond session in October and November, 1869. In May, 1869 a circu- 
lar was issued in the Augshurger AUgemeine Zeitung, in which due 
prominence is given to the Pedagogical section. 

True philosophy, as an educator, is ever active to clear away the barriers 
that stand in the waj^ of clear, unbiased comprehenKion of science and life in 
their relations and inteprrity. Philosophy raises the banner, not of any one 
special science, but of human culture, and however regarded by the material- 
ists of the day as a foolish pursuit, it is the only basis of rightful education — 
nothing less than which has been the aim of all the eminent educators of our 
time, such as Cojienius, PESTALOZzr, Diestbrweg, Frobel. So far as the 
General German Teachers' Convention and the Austrian Teachers build on the 
foundations these men iiave laid, they work for the same ends as the Philoso- 
phers' Congress, from which tliey are onlj' distinguished in this, that the}' have 
special educational aims, while the Philosophers' Congress takes into considera- 
tion all questions of interest to cultivated persons and society at large. A del- 
egation was sent to tlie Teachers' Convention at Berlin, asking them to take 
part in the Congress at Frankfort-on-the-Main ; to aid, by word and co-opera- 
tion, to solve tlie educational problems of the present, the most prominent of 
which are the completing and remodeling of the public schools, especially the 
establishing and reorganizing of Kindergartens, in accordance with the spirit 
of Frobel. 

One problem to be solved in the establishing of a philosophical normal school 
for the training of educators and teachers, by which not only a remodeling and 
improvement of the primary, but also of the high-schools, shall be attained. 
Finall}'' they will ask for an improvement in female education, in accordance 
with the demands of the present time and the vocation of the female sex. As 
these points are felt to be of importance by every thinking educator, it is be- 
lieved that all the teachers will meet with confidence and good-will, a conven- 
tion of thinking friends of humanity, to devise means for its welfare. 

The Berlin Teachers' Convention responded favorably, and was 
present in force at the session held in Frankfort, Oct. 26, 1869. 

• We are referred by Dr. Hnrris, to the Jlugsburger Jillgemeine Zeitung for October, 1868, and 
the Philosophische Mnnertshafte, Vol. I, p. 514, Vol. II, p. 139, 236, 322, 424 ; and Leohnardi's 
Die Neuve Zeit for 1867-9, for a. full account of the proceedings of the Philosophers' Congress. 

19 (289) 



290 FROEBEL IN PHILOSOPHERS' CONGRESS. 

" In tlie beginning of our century, education needed a new impulse ; and it 
■was given by Pestalozzi and Fichte who broke tlie road for the national edu- 
cation of Germany. But the question, what is the true humane mode of educa- 
tion, applicable to all men every where, comes up anew, and asks for the right 
means to fulfill its mission. 

"i'RiEDRicK Frobel, the great educational reformer of our era, in his sys- 
tem of education, promises these means. But, as yet, his method has been only 
partly and inadequately carried out in the widely-multiplying Kindergartens. 
It asks for a thorough investigation, on the part of scientific men, of the princi- 
ples on which it is based ; and if its claims prove to be well founded, it should 
be recommended to all governments and communities, and its adoption decreed. 
In view of the great importance of this question, an educational committee, 
which counts eminent scientific men among its members, was formed last year 
in Berlin, during tlie teachers' convention, for the purpose of taking the matter 
into consideration ; and they are invited to attend the Philosophers' Congress 
as members, taking active part in it, discussing the general educational questions, 
and devising means to establish a central normal school for the education of 
male and female teachers, who may meet all the demands of our time in all 
directions ; and an address to the government and school authorities of Ger- 
many for the reform of iho normal schools, will be submitted for discussion." 

The subjects thus announced in the manifests of the BerUn Teach- 
ers' Convention were discussed in the Pedagogical Section of the 
Philadelphia Congress at Frankfort from Oct. 26th to Nov. 4th, and 
the conclusions reached in the field of popular education, were em- 
bodied in a Report of a special committee of which Prof, von Fichte 
was chairman. During the session, the Baroness von Marenholtz- 
Bulow gave four public lectures in Frankfort whick were largely at- 
tended, and took the initiatory steps for the establishment of a 
"General Educational Union," which was organized in 1871-72. 

Prof. I. H. vok Fichte, the author of the following Report, 
was a philosopher and writer of great eminence and remarkable 
versatility. He was born July 8, 1797, the son of the distinguished 
philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte, whose writings and personal 
influence are world renowned, and who died the 27tli of June, 
1814. His widow died five years later. The son took his degree 
as Doctor of Philosophy in 1818, at the University of Berlin, where 
for a short time he was established as Privat-docent. Later he 
became a Gymnasial teacher in Saarbriicken, and subsequently in 
Diisseldorf. For several years till 1840, he was Professor Extraor- 
dinary of Philosophy in Bonn. In 1842 he was called to Tubingen 
as Professor of Philosophy, where he remained till 1863, when 
he resigned and removed to Stuttgart, where he resided till his 
death, at the age of 83. He was a voluminous writer upon a vari- 
ety of subjects, on Philosophy, Ethics, Pedagogics, and Theology, 
singularly clear, candid, and sensible, earnestly theistic and chris- 
tian. He founded the journal which bears his name and has 
reached the 78th volume, and is highly esteemed in Germany and 
wherever German Philosophy is studied. 



THE NATIONAL EDUCATION DEMANDED BY THE AGE, 

CONSIDERED IN CONNECTION WITH THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM OF FRIEDRICH FROBEL. 

By Prof. J. H. Von Fichte.* 



I. EDUCATION — THE PROBLEM OF THE AGE. 

Since Pestalozzi's great movement, it has become, at least in Germany, 
a universally recognized conviction, that only by means of an improved 
popular education, can the many defects of civil, social and family life 
be thoroughly corrected, and a better future be assured to our posterity. 
It may be asserted, still more universally, that the fate of a people, its 
growth and decay, depend, ultimately and mainly, on the education 
which is given to its youth. Hence follows, with the same indisputable 
certainty, the next axiom : that nation which, in all its classes, possesses 
the most thorough and varied cultivation, will, at the same time, be the 
most powerful and the happiest, among the peoples of its century ; invin- 
cible to its neighbors and envied by its contemporaries, or an example 
for them to imitate. Indeed, it can be asserted, with the exactness of a 
mathematical truth, that even the most reliable preparation for war 
can be most surely reached through the right education of physically- 
developed young men. This conviction also gains ground in Germany ; 
and renewed efforts are now made to introduce gymnastics (turnen) into 
the system of common school education, freed from all cumbersome 
modifications, and restored to their simple, first principles. 

But the problems of national education are far from being limited to 
these immediate, practical aims. Its workings must not alone cover the 
present and its necessities ; the great plan of national education must 
comprehend unborn generations, the future of our race, the immediate 
and therefore the most distant. Finally, man must not be educated 
for the State alone (after the manner of Greece and Rome), but the 
highest civil and educational aim must be to lead the individual and 
the whole race toward their moral perfection. National education must 
therefore extend beyond the popular and expedient ; must construct 
its foundations on pure and universal humanity, and then raise upon 
these whatever national and professional wants require. This grada- 
tion of requirements strictly held, will prove to be a guiding rule of great 
importance. 

Here now, it may seem — and " idealizing educators " have frequently 
received such reproaches — as if in these demands, far off, impossible 

* Translated by Emily Meyer, with slight verbal alterations and abridgements. 



292 THE PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 

problems were treated of, as if educational Utopias were desired, instead 
of looking after what is nearest and most necessary. And one could say, 
even with an appearance of right, that inasmuch as we perform what is 
near and sure, we approach, at least progressively, our highest goal. 
For national education is a work so comprehensive, complicated and 
prodigious, that it can be realized only in favorable periods and within 
very circumscribed limits. 

Admitting this last, we hope still to show how directly practical the 
consideration of that universal question of principle is, and that the edu- 
cation of the present will only reach its aim by beginning at this point. 
We are undeniably entering a new era. We are preparing to cast aside 
the last remnants of the middle ages. Inherited rights are precarious, or 
at least they can claim no legal sanction, while, nevertheless, much in 
our manners and customs remind us of the past. No one is compelled 
to serve another, and no individual enjoys in idleness the profits of 
another man's labor; but for each, labor and capacity are to be the sole 
supports of his position in life. Thus each is thrown upon his own 
exertions, and the path of unlimited competition and zealous efibrt is 
opened to all. 

For this reason there should no longer be a privileged class, but to 
each, approximately at least, must be oflfered every thing which belongs 
to a universal human culture, and what his particular capacities de- 
mand or are able to appropriate. Only upon these two conditions can 
the citizen of the commonwealth be fitted for the future " struggle for 
existence," to continue equal to the increased requirements, and fulfill 
ably his chosen calling. 

This new great principle of the equal rights of all to all which their 
talents can grasp, demands a plan of education fundamentally renovated 
and readjusted. In every given case, the education must be strictly 
proportional to the conditions which the period oifers. But it can not be 
denied, that in the present period this proportional relation has not been 
reached ; yes, there is even danger that it may be missed of, by a mis- 
taken arrangement of details. For this reason, those upon whom the 
responsibility of educating rests, must recognize clearly the final aim of 
the same, and prepare it with practical certainty, through all the neces- 
sary grades. Above all, therefore, theoretically there must be no vacil- 
lation in principles, practically no failure in the correct issues ! If we 
should succeed only in spreading a wholesome light over these two 
points, we should feel that we had solved our present problem. 

Our politicians and State educators differ widely in regard to that aim; 
and this is the next ground where the struggle should begin. Whoever 
considers a republic the highest goal to which a State can attain, laments 
that he sees no republicans around him ; these true education must 
make. But what the republican spirit, in which the people are to be 
educated, really is, there is no thorough insight. This spirit is the op- 
posite of that which has till now existed, and which sees true freedom 



PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 293 

only in a leveling equality, and the overthrow of old authority and social 
barriers ; and above all admits no civil compulsion in education. Each 
individual must cultivate himself for such practical purposes as he 
chooses, and as well as he can. Education and its institutions must be 
entirely untrammeled. As a fitting example we can refer to what is 
delated of North America, where the educational conditions, and the 
consequent family life, are free in general. The pupil is prepared, as 
early as possible, to help himself onward, in some form of profitable 
business. The greatest activity, and the richest accumulation of prop- 
erty, is the aim of each. Though German republicanism may reject 
these principles, it must still admit that there is consistency in them, 
and that if thg State has no higher aim than to become a great indus- 
trial and fiscal institution, an immense phalanstery for the most enhanced 
pleasures of this mortal life, this purpose is being realized on the other 
side of the ocean, in a highly pi'actical way, and without unnecessary 
complications ; not, indeed, without already displaying the moral evils 
which unavoidably accompany its progress, and to which our republican 
sages persistently shut their eyes. 

Those who find their ideal state in old feudalism, in simple submission 
to the fatherly care of " princes by the grace of God," and see in a full 
return to such conditions the only safety from the dangers of the present, 
must also contemplate a reform, indeed a retrograde movement, of the 
educational system. They will insist upon clinging to old things, even to 
preserving what is decayed, solely because it is consecrated by author- 
ity. Nor are we without example of this ; for we find a North German 
State, betraying a lamentable inconsistency and blindness in settling 
the most important question of popular education, limits the range and 
thoroughness of instruction, and thus destroys the germs of its future 
growth as a State. 

These two parties — we have mentioned only their extreme character- 
istics, while numerous intermediate grades exist — designate only the 
extreme limits of the antithesis, which touches all the political and social 
questions of the age. They stand upon the broad field of the literature 
and opinions of our time, as if separated by a wide chasm, and in irre- 
concilable hostility. They could, however, by returning to their first, 
true principles, and acquiring a clearer insight, be brought to recognize 
each other ; and, instead of incessantly quarreling, be made to acknowl- 
edge their relative rights, and work harmoniously upon the common task 
of improving the education of the people. We consider it not only de- 
sirable, but possible, that the work of reconciliation should begin with a 
true appreciation of popular education, which is the common aim of 
both sides. By this we mean that the conservatives, who will sacrifice 
nothing which is sanctified by age and authority, do not see how, in 
thus destroying, that which is truly valuable and enduring can be pre- 
served. For the new form in which it is to arise more enduringly, does 
not present itself so distinctly that they can recognize it. This gives 



294 



THE PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDTICATION. 



them a right to protest that it is better to retain the oldest positive forro 
than sink into the nothingness of a bare negation ; no new form should 
be introduced which is not at least a full compensation for the old. 

On the other side, we see reformers too frequently losing themselves 
in what is external or unessential. They do not often get beyond empty 
plans of abolition. They are clear as to what they do not want, but do 
not perceive as clearly what is permanently to fill the place of that which 
they reject. They are deeply mistaken if they think, that, in ridding 
themselves of certain hindrances, they gain creative freedom, the power 
to erect a positive structure. We can not err, in asseiting that most 
revolutions have failed and become unfortunately retrogressive, because 
their leaders did not know what they wanted, or at least what they 
ought to want. 

In the first place, it is necessary to understand the past correctly, and 
to recognize clearly what in it has still a relative right to continue, and 
what must serve as a transitional basis and means for that which is new 
and necessary. The law of continuity, of gradual transition, which we 
see ruling organic life with irresistible sway, has also in all intellectual 
processes, whether political or social, its highest authorization, the vio- 
lation of which never escapes punishment. We might call it the educa- 
tional law of the world's history. 

If we may be allowed to presume that, as a general thing, the best 
thinkers agree upon these fundamental principles, then we may consider 
the following inference as admitted. It is plain, namely, that the path 
of this gradual, complete, and peaceful transition from the present into 
the new period, must take place in the field of education ; for in the 
growing race, the old and new time, the decaying past and vigorously- 
developing future, meet and are reconciled. And thus in this direction, 
the decisive truth is proved : 

All political and social controversies of the present concentrate finally 
in the question of education; tut not only in regard to what must be 
done in detail and immediately, but more universally still, in this: 
What is the only true education, the education worthy of the human 
being ? 

This is plainly a psychological-ethical question. It can be decided — • 
with the permission of our practical teachers — only on philosophical 
ground. Not — and here experience must be our guide — not that a cer- 
tain philosophical system is to construct for all time, an educational plan 
which all must follow, but that correct insight into the nature of the 
human intellect must first fix the nature and the end of all human edu- 
cation, and must at the same time designate the fundamental principles 
by which the several questions of education and instruction are to be 
decided. Thus we shall be able to dispose of the final question : Which 
one, of the now ruling educational systems, is best adapted to the nature 
of the human mind ? 



THE PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 



295 



Without prolonging the discussion unreasonably, we can not omit, at 
least not completely, the psychological questions as to the nature of 
the soul — what is received from without into its growing consciousness, 
and on the other hand how much its original (Opacities contribute to its 
development. The controversy concerning these psychological princi- 
ples is by no means concluded, and it can not be even briefly discussed 
here. It will sufifice to point out historically the tendencies which have 
become prominent, as far at least as they have had an influence upon the 
science of instruction. 

IT. PHILOSOPniCAL PRINCIPLES IN POPULAR EDUCATION. 

At present, there are only two philosophical systems which have had 
a controlling influence in this direction ; those of Herbart and Beneke. 

JoTiann Friedrich Herhart. 

Herbart deserves particular attention, because, as he himself confesses, 
it was his educational studies which incited him to psychological re- 
searches. He says, " The incentive to these researches, which are not 
easy, was my conviction that a great part of the defects of our ed- 
ucational systems was traceable to an ignorance of psychology, and that 
we must first understand this science, indeed must destroy the blind 
which we now-a-days call psychology, before we can safely say what work 
we have performed correctly and what incorrectly in our teachings." 

He starts, in his system, with strict consistency, from the conception 
of the soul as a simple and in itself an unchangeable essence. Intuition 
may be called acts of self-assertion on the part of the soul, with which 
it responds to impulses which act on it from without. Consciousness is 
only the sum of the relations between the soul and the external world. 

Out of this arises the necessity of education, i. e., a correct outward 
influence upon the undeveloped man. For the soul possesses no fixed 
original capacities; man is only physically a being who brings with 
him, into the world, the germs of his future shape ; on the contrary, his 
soul may be compared to a machine, constructed wholly and entirely 
of ideas. 

For this very reason, it possesses an unlimited capacity of culture, and 
this decides, on the whole, the possibility of education. A systematic 
education should seek to preserve the pupil from ruin, and raise him to 
inner freedom, by teaching him guiding conceptions, and by rousing his 
intellectual interests, while in the midst of its present life and under its- 
influences, from which it is neither possible, nor advisable to withdraw 
him ; — moral culture is its aim. 

The object of education, is "an equally developed variety of intellect- 
ual interests," subject to the aim of moral culture. "All must be lovers 
of every thing, each one must excel in one branch." This is Herbart's 
highest canon for education and instruction. This signifies, if it is cor- 
rectly and comprehensively understood, the height to which human cul- 



296 THE PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 

ture can attain. Herbart's premises, in his conception of the soul, we 
must consider insufficient (why, and why also to the injur}'' of his peda- 
gogical theories, we shall show below), but he has, nevertheless, given us 
safe guides for education rfnd instruction, in his conception of the capac- 
ity of culture and his sharp and unprejudiced study of child and 
man, and above all, in his psychological observations of the inner gra- 
dations, through which the growing consciousness passes, especially 
those that banish what is injuriously eccentric and extravagant, and 
preserve what is essential and necessary. We find in almost no work, 
as far as pedagogical literature is known to us, so many practically com- 
prehensive hints, precepts and warnings, in as small space, as in Herbart's 
" Outlines of pedagogical lectures." They betray every where, the sharp 
glance of the experienced teacher which Herbart really was. 

The following are the reasons why the principles of his pedagogism 
do not satisfy us. They are the same which compelled us critically 
to oppose his fundamental, psychological views. Here we will take note 
only of what has flowed from his psychological into his pedagogical 
reasonings, which he has conducted with sharp, steadfast logic. 

According to those principles, the conscious condition of the soul, each 
given moment, is equal to the sum of the conceptions which, through the 
psychical mechanism, have collected in it, by means of the relations 
which exist between the soul and other beings ; and the course, the 
change of its conscious condition, is again strictly dependent upon this 
psychical mechanism. The soul itself is only to be considered as es- 
sentially idealess, as the unalterable soul-unit which is roused to self- 
assertion, by objective influences. Each conscious state of the soul 
is thus a common product of those two factors, one formal (because it 
does not disturb the fundamental nature of the soul) self-assertion, on 
the part of the soul, and one variously composed excitement of ideas, 
on the part of the object, by which (as a critic of Herbart's theory says) 
"the definition of objective truth is naturally lost to our recognition." 

Each single, so created idea expresses itself in consequence of its op- 
position to others, as a " force," by which a mutual, greater, or smaller 
check is caused among the ideas. Through this, motion is first intro- 
duced into the mass of ideas, which form among themselves combina- 
tions, complications, and groups. The relations between objects and 
their corresponding ideas are not all equally strong; one displaces, 
strengthens, obscures the other; the suppressed ideas wait at the 
threshold of consciousness, until they can rise again and unite with simi- 
lar oneSj and then press forward with combined power. The working 
ideas, repelled at the threshold of consciousness, waiting only in the 
dark, we call sensations. 

They express themselves, in proportion as their struggles forward are 
more or less successful, as "desires." Desire becomes will, when it is 
united to the hope of success. Will is not, according to this definite ex- 
planation, a real and acting self-determination, arising out of the funda- 



THE PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. £97 

mental nature of the soul, against excitements from without, but only a 
manifestation of ideas, which forms itself in the soul by means of an in- 
voluntary, psychological mechanism. We believe that we ourselves will, 
but both the will and the belief in it are only the necessary products 
of the continuously running machine within us. We will, because we 
must, /. f., because the forward struggling mass of ideas is finally concen- 
trated into the idea of a subject which wills, and an object which is willed. 
According to this, what is called in common language, fancy, memory, 
understanding, reasons, desires, will, etc., or what is cited as the sup- 
posed faculties of the soul, is only a certain activity, in a certain mass 
of ideas, the conduct of the ideas toward each other. 

The question of the possibility of education presupposes a mutability 
in the mind of the pupil, in the course of his ideas, which the educator 
must be able to control, at least under certain conditions. He can direct 
his attention to those states only, not however to their real subject, which, 
as soul, is the immutable foundation upon which the intellectual life, i. e., 
the variety of results occurring in and •between the ideas, constructs, 
ennobles or degrades itself, and in which appear the principal tenden- 
cies through which the signs of human nature first become visible. 

It follows from this that psychology must become the fundamental 
science of pedagogism. As pedagogism is first brought to perfection as 
a doctrine by the aid of thorough psychological knowledge, so again, 
through the same knowledge alone can educational activity rise to the 
rank of art. Psychology shows finally the causes of the fluctuations 
of minds between truth and error, between good and evil, and thus 
teaches, that a need of education is present in them, and that this is 
even necessary, in order to plant what is essentially human in the s6ul. 

All educational activity may be divided into the three functions, gov- 
ernment, instruction, discipline. The child is born without a will ; a 
personal will is formed gradually in him. During this time, all kinds of 
disorder and impetuosity make their appearance ; it is the business of 
government to keep these within bounds. What nature teaches by ex- 
perience and intercourse, is too imperfect and irregular, is scattered and 
fragmentary. An artistic activity must perfect, arrange, and unite the 
mass of ideas thus collected. This artistic activity is instruction. 

The goal of instruction is not solely or chiefly to be the imparting of 
knowledge or the acquisition of an outward technical skill, but directly 
the improvement of the pupil by its means, the most important part of 
education. Therefore, education more closely defined, is the systematic 
conception and cultivation of ideas, as the elements of the soul's life, 
until that " variety of interests " is attained, out of which spring the 
ability and readiness to will, on the one side, and on the other, "taste," 
or " moral aesthetic judgment." 

Discipline — Self- Education. 
'The idea of discipline points at something which does not yet exist, 



298 THE PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 

but that is hoped and intended, for the future, to which the pupil must 
first be led. Discipline is principally applied to the will. It consists in 
influencing the mind of the pupil, with the view of ennobling him and 
developing him morally, which can only be done by training his will to 
be correct and steadfast. Its object is the formation of character. 
Character is the art of ruling the will, the peculiar individual construc- 
tion of the inclinations, in their quantitative relations. The subjective 
part of character is "taste," moral aesthetic judgment, whose office it is 
to criticise the objective element. 

Finally, the highest goal and most perfect success of education is the 
ability of self-education. Out of the moral-testhetic power of "con- 
scientious judgment," can arise a pure, unselfish enthusiasm for good- 
ness, united with courage and prudence, through which genuine 
morality is strengthened into character, and by means of which the in- 
dividual practices a preserving, restoring and improving art upon him- 
self — self-education. 

In accordance with these three aspects of government, instruction, and 
discipline, special maxims and precepts are developed whose truth and 
manifold practical value can not be disputed, even though one may not 
acknowledge these principles. They are emphatically recommended 
to the earnest consideration of every educator, particularly every 
teacher, and to constant self trial for his educational deportment. We 
scarcely presume too much, when we assert that Herbart was the first 
among all the German pedagogical writers, to introduce order, light, and 
a comprehensive gradation of pedagogical problems, as also a quiet in- 
sight into pedagogical procedures, into the previously fragmentary mass 
of observations and precepts. 

Others followed their instincts, or tradition, and a certain practiced 
routine, whose results might be successful or not; and this is still gen- 
erally done. Herbart rejects this entirely ; he demands for the whole, 
an educational art which shall reach back to the first principles of psy- 
chological life, and carefully follow its development, thereby founding a 
soundly arranged, educational art ; for details, a constantly conscious, 
psychologically controlled application of those universal precepts. He 
has thus laid the foundation of the science of pedagogism. 

Nevertheless, there is no contradiction in asserting, that the excel- 
lence of these pedagogical precepts is by no means a guaranty for the 
truth of his psychological first-principles, and for the correctness of his 
conception of the nature of the soul. For if we look more closely, we do 
not find that these precepts are deduced from this as a principle, or are 
simply confirmed by it even, and that they would be untenable without 
it, but that the}^ are derived from sharp and extensive observation, and 
thus possess an absolute value, independent of the judgment which 
one vasLj be obliged to pronounce upon the principle itself 

On the contrary, we might say, as far as the principle has had any 
real influence upon Herbart's pedagogical theories, it has placed them in 



THE PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. £99 

open contradiction to experience. His theory of the formal simplicity 
of the soul's nature, of its deficiency in all original capacities, has com- 
elled him to exaggerate the work of instruction, and ascribe to it a value 
which experience by no means confirms. This contradiction does not 
arise because the educational art recommended by Herbart is a faulty 
one, but from the deeper and more universal cause, that the nature of 
the human soul is quite different, more richly gifted, than Herbart, 
compelled by metaphysical and not psychological reasons, can ac- 
knowledge. 

According to that principle, of course, education can make what it 
pleases out of the wholly indifferent soul ; it needs only, aft<jr its known 
laws of psychical mechanism, to supply it with correct ideas, in appro- 
priate strength, order, and clearness, in order to make them the con- 
trolling ones, in its consciousness, against which the others, conceived 
by chance and unfit, are powerless. As he holds further, that the 
human soul is deficient in all original gifts, so it must follow, that, by 
means of education, instruction, and discipline, each can become what 
educational art intends to make of him, if only outward circumstances — 
not inner endowments — allow the completion of the educational work. 
For, according to these fundamental views, man, in his intellectual per- 
manence and grade of culture, is the product of outward influences, be 
it of chance, which ought not to be, or of art, which just education 
must accomplish. Every thing is brought into the empty soul by in- 
culcation. This view can not recognize original talents, fundamental im- 
pulses, and various predispositions for one thing and against another; 
which belongs to the "myths" of the old psychology. On the contrary, 
we might expect, that, by means of an extensive, psychological calcula- 
tion, the strength could be exactly stated, which an idea in the consci- 
ousness must receive, in order to make it victorious over all others. And 
on the whole, it would be only necessary to apply that calculation to 
each pupil correctly, in order to insure the success of instruction. It is 
scarcely necessary to prove that this collective view of man contradicts 
collective experiences, and not only, by daily confirmed examples, that 
the same education produces different results in different persons, which 
necessarily presupposes the existence of different intellectual prelimi- 
nary conditions, but more thoroughly still, when we examine the deeper, 
psychological conditions which make historical, and cultivated progress 
possible. We can speak of this briefly here, inasmuch as our psychology 
may hope to have answered the question, by proving a universal in- 
dividuality. The simple consideration is here sufficient, that what is 
brought into the intellect from without, by inculcation, can still be only 
something old and previously existing ; that, in admitting that every 
thing in the soul originates in this way, we deny just that principle 
which constitutes the signature of all real individuality (genius), the 
creative, inventive power of the intellect, through which alone all 
which is important and universally historical, and all progressive cul- 



300 



THE PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 



ture, has entered into human history. After this comprehensive obser- 
vation, it will be necessary to seeli also for another psychological, basis. 

On the other side, nevertheless, the relative or subordinate claims of 
Herbart's pedagogism can not be denied ; and we would like to say the 
same of it, which our psychological criticism asserted of his conception 
of the soul ; that it is not incorrect, but it is incomplete, and only when 
it is rightly completed, can it maintain its independent claim. 

Here is something perfectly analogous. We can have the utmost con- 
fidence in his pedagogical precepts, even though we reject the curious 
deductions which are a necessary consequence of his conception of the 
soul ; for those have an universal value ; we shall even find that they 
are capable of more varied applications, when we underlay them with 
another definition of the soul, more in keeping with our experience. 

Friedrich Eduard BeneTce.* 

Beneke's services consist in having exposed, in a very apt manner, 
the cause of the one-sidedness which we meet in Herbart's pedagogism. 
He saj^s Herbart's theory is indeed based upon experience, but the con- 
ceptions of experience, in their direct form, appear to him full of con- 
tradictions which must be removed, not through an extensive and exact 
examination of facts, and hence through a more searching experience, 
but in an artificial way, by means of a logical process of thought. So we 
see him resume already in the second step, the construction out of mere 
conceptions of that which he had rejected in the first. He has arrived 
at his conception of the soul along this path of logical metaphysical con- 
struction. Because it is a logical contradiction to think of a reality with 
several qualities, we should insist upon considering the soul as a strictly 
simple being, essentially unchangeable, as the really normal unit of the 
changes which are wrought upon and not by it. For the same empty 
logical methodological reasons, he has rejected the harmless and even 
fruitful conception of faculties, instead of determining, by careful observa- 
tion and treatment of psychical facts, what the soul really is, and what 
preliminary conditions underlie its growing consciousness. Finally, he 
has retained, in the spirit of the old psychology, the most universal culti- 
vating form of the already conscious, cultivated soul ("the forming of 
ideas") incorrectly, as a really original and universal, fundamental form 
of the same, and operates further with the ideas as if they were real be- 
ings, independent of each other. 

These critical objections to Herbart's psychology fully account for 
the principal deviation in Beneke's fundamental pedagogical views. 
Beneke's dependence upon Herbart has been too strongly and incor- 
rectly intimated. It is none other than that the follower has the right, 
yes, is in duty bound to criticise his scientific predecessors. One may 
assert that Beneke's psychology is fashioned intrinsically upon an antith- 
esis to Herbart's, and if his educational precepts do not widely differ 

* See Baraurd's Journal of Education, xzviii, p. 50. 



THE PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 30I 

from Herbart's, this may be less a dependence upon him, than a con- 
formity of their practical judgments, which also in Herbart's theory 
have shown themselves tolerably independent of his own psychological 
principles. 

The cardinal question of all psychological art is this, what does the 
soul contribute from itself, in its unconscious being, to the process of 
consciousness, and what comes to it from without ? 

Beneke answers this question quite diiferently from Herbart, but we 
are convinced not searchingly and therefore not in a way that touches 
upon the real point of difference. He starts from the fundamental 
thought that the soul is not simple, but consists of a plurality of single 
powers, and that the abilities of the soul are not at all fundamental 
powers. All kinds of intellectual activity, as the ideas of the imagina- 
tion, conceptions, conclusions, etc., are to be considered as derived, from 
their relation to the sensuous perceptions. For perceptions first furnish 
the material for the ideas and conceptions ; these again are the founda- 
tions for judgments and conclusions, up to the most complicated proces- 
ses of thought. But even the sensuous perceptions are not the first and 
most simple. Every perception is a complex of sensations and only in 
these do we possess that which is really original and first in the con- 
sciousness. But the ability of the soul "to feci" is not abstract and 
uncertain, it is divided into sharply defined provinces, into sensations 
of sight, hearing, taste, etc. And these simple, sensuous powers of 
feeling must be accepted finally, as that which is truly primitive and 
inherent in the human soul. 

These primitive abilities, however, need a stimulus to awaken them, 
and thus arises what we call sensation. The soul retains a trace of every 
action, where the stimulus excites the ability. Accordingly, the forces 
and abilities of cultivated souls consist of previously excited sensations. 

If the stimulus is only sufficient to fill the ability, perception arises; 
if it is too small for the receiving ability, displeasure ; if it is overflow- 
ing, the sensation of pleasure; if it is gradually increased to super- 
fluity, satiety and stupefaction ; if the superfluit}'^ is sudden and strong, 
pain. 

If several impression's, left by perception, are homogeneous and mix, 
they become ideas. If the same perception is repeated upon differ- 
ent things, it is accepted as common to all things; a conception is 
formed. All conceptions together constitute the understanding. If a 
new perception is added to a conception, what is common to both mixes 
and forms a conclusion ; the sum of conclusions is the ability of making 
conclusions. 

Sufficient stimulants furnish clear ideas and thus satisfaction and 
pleasure ; insufficient stimulants form positive dissatisfaction and dis- 
pleasure. According to the nature of the stimulants, and their re- 
sults, there arise in the soul, inclination or aversion, propensity and 
passion. That which affords satisfaction is a treasure which the soul 



302 THE PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 

strives after, the opposite, an evil which it repels. Single endeavors 
mix, after the law of analogy, and arrange themselves in ranks and 
groups. These ranks and groups are wishes, and the sum of all the 
endeavors and wishes of the soul, is the will. 

The form of feeling is not in the same degree a fundamental form, as 
that of ideas and desires. Feeling is based upon ideas, and the differ- 
ence of the simultaneously and rapidly arising ideas, and the aroused 
volition, thus appears in the soul as feeling. The difference of the 
feelings develops with the ideas, and their vivacity is in a correct pro- 
portion to the vivacity of the ideas in which they originate. In the 
greater vigor, vivacitj^ and susceptibility of the higher senses, which, 
above all others, create in us those ideas out of which conceptions and 
conclusions are formed whose contents are both goodness and beauty, 
lies the reason why feelings for truth, goodness and beauty are found in 
all men. Therefore, the rank which the individual will win in intellect- 
ual culture and moral freedom, depends upon the correct proportion in 
which the higher senses develop, in opposition to the lower. 

This, according to Beneke, is what is common to all men. The in- 
dividualizing momentum, he places in the various grades of "force" 
"vivacity " and " susceptibility," with which those original abilities are 
endowed. Intellectual activity is more or less strong and compre- 
hensive, in proportion to the degree of force, in proportion to the de- 
gree of susceptibility, more or less rapid and mobile. In proportion to 
this vivacity, one person can, in the same time, form and retain a 
greater number of ideas than another. 

But he reminds us at the same time that these three forms of temper- 
ament by no means cover equally all inherent, primitive abilities ; that, 
on the contrary, each may have its peculiar fundamental nature, so that 
the same man may have as many, possibly different temperaments, as 
he has sensuous original abilities; (a position which single observations 
seem indeed to confirm, but with which scarcely one psj'-chology, based 
upon the laws of " ps3^choph3'sics," and holding fast to the idea of the 
unity of the soul, can coincide). The aforementioned phenomenon has 
a deeper source, lying in the individual, fundamental quality of the soul, 
and in its original, but variously distributable measure of force. 

Every degree of susceptibility can originally unite with every degree 
of force, to which then later acquirements are added ; for the soul re- 
tains a trace of every thing which is developed perfectly ; and in that 
inherent difference, and in the quality of those traces, in the number 
and peculiar shapes of these connections, originate not merely the most 
heterogeneous knowledge, skill, habits, but also inclinations and per- 
sonal characteristics. 

Finally, the individual differences which we meet among men arc 
created and explained by the co-operation of all those traces and the 
consequent capacities of the soul. This individuality is, in its contents 
and peculiar construction, the collective result of what is imparted to 



THE PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 



303 



the soul from without. The formal energy, the degree of " susceptibil- 
ity," "vivacity" and "vigor" are all which is inherent. These can be 
cherished and increased by education and culture, but not extended 
beyond its original Hmits. For to what is inherent is added, as individ- 
ualizing momentum, only the difference of the degree with which the 
susceptibility meets the different provinces of the senses. 

Thus Beneke, in keeping with his principles, completely answers the 
question, what is inherent in the soul, and what enters our conscious- 
ness from without? The cultivated man is not, as Herbart holds, the 
product of his surroundings, education, and culture; his individuality 
does not lie in any ideal capacity of the intellect, but in the original 
differences of temperament. For nothing is inherent in the human soul, 
except the universal quality of its sensuous foundation, certain degrees 
of susceptibility, vivacity, and force. * 

From the preceding outline of psychological theory, one can judge 
as to what Beneke has contributed to pedagogism. According to him, 
the educator has no other direct means of influencing the pupil, than 
through the sensuous sensations and perceptions which he excites in 
him, either of himself or of other things. This course can have a three- 
fold purpose; the perceptions are furnished him for their own sakes, 
or for the sake of the traces which are retained, or for the sake of 
the inner capacities which, through them, can be awakened and culti- 
vated. To the first and second belong the foundations of all element- 
ary, inner culture; the third includes the combinations and other changes 
and improvements of that, of which (he elements already exist in the 
soul. The direct influence, considered alone, is essentially the same in 
the first moments of the child's life as in the latest periods of education, 
and even beyond, throughout the whole life. Only with regard to what 
is to be developed from within, do the educational means, which are 
suitable to different ages, differ. 

Beneke recognizes the prominent worth and importance for education 
of those elementary materials of culture, and imparts at the same time 
a succession of practically useful precepts for first instruction, which 
also includes the commencements of training. But these precepts are 
chiefly of a preventive kind ; are rather warning against the mistakes 
of the previous educational and instructional method, than positive 
directions how the self-activity of the pupil is to be aroused, early, and 
in every direction ; and they do not reach back, energetically and with 
clear consciousness, to that starting point of all education, in which we 
shall find the signal merits of Frobel's educational thought. Beneke 
demands for the development of the sensuous sensations and percep- 
tions, that the child should not be burdened and stupefied by over stim- 
ulation, should not be urged from one thing to another, thus preventing 
it from comprehending the details and arriving at a correct contemplation 
of its soni=ations; that one should give the child the object itself, rather 
than the picture or model of it, that one should give him complete in- 



304 THE PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 

tuitions, rather than words, clear ideas, rather than conceptions, alto- 
gether what is simple and concrete and thoroughly definite, rather than 
the abstract and universal. The formation of ideas must also precede the 
ability to understand, judge and decide ; the perfection of the growing 
understanding depends upon the perfection with which the separate 
ideas were originally formed and preserved, as "the conception origi- 
nates only in the attraction of the equal constituents of the single ideas 
and sensations." Nothing is more injurious to the growth of the un- 
derstanding, than an inattentive apprehension, a mere heaping up of 
superficial material. The sooner the abstract working up of the intui- 
tions begins, the less will be collected, the sooner will the material be 
exhausted. He lays down the universal canon: "Nature means that 
man should be at first predominantly sensuous, then predominently re- 
productive, and then last of all become productive in intellectual things. 
The educator should not disturb this order." 

Who can not, even with wider fundamental views, coincide with this 
useful, in most points, desirable advice ? Beneke, hand-in-hand with 
Pestalozzi's simple, great idea — to base all instruction upon the de- 
velopment of elementary intuitions, and thus at the same time rouse 
the self-activity of the pupil — has always sought, through these prin- 
ciples, to promote the cultivation of the higher intellectual capacities, 
memory and thought; and his influence has certainly been beneficial to 
elementary instruction in many parts of Germany. For he has found 
scholars and followers who have defended his principles theoretically, 
and introduced them into practice. 

But what is wanting in his theory of education, what shows it to be 
unsuitable to become the starting point of a reformatory, entirely re- 
modeled system of education and instruction, such as the present needs, 
is. as with Herbart, the faults of his psychology. It is predominently 
sensualizing; it has also injured his pedagogism. It does not recognize, 
or mistakes what is intellectually original in man, his (a priori) uncon- 
scious, fundamental tendencies. Consequently, it does not gain a com- 
plete insight into the organizing centre of all education, and its final 
goal. According to him, the pupil is born only with the capacity to re- 
ceive sensuous sensations and intuitions, to cherish them, to unite and 
separate them in proportion to their similarity and dissimilarity, to culti- 
vate the inclinations to which they have given rise, etc., etc. 

The work of education can only be to bring art and rule into this 
psychological process, which is self-forming, and only defined by out- 
ward things. In this, there can be no ideal of education whose pur- 
pose is to conduct men toward their common ethical destiny ; for the 
psychological consequences of this theory do not allow of such a com- 
mon destiny. Each becomes only that which his surroundings make of 
him, (accidentally or through education). Thus, on the one side, an all- 
deteripining success is ascribed to education, which it does not in reality 
possess ; on the other side, its final value is still a subordinate one, for 



THE PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 3Q5 

it concerns only the preparation of the pupil for the position which he is 
to occupy in life, and not the cultivation of his intellectual individuality. 
As Benekc's psychology has not paid due attention to this deeper 
study of man, so his pedagogical principles have not been able to re- 
trieve it ; and so the pedagogical debate can only be carried to decisive 
conclusion upon another, the psychological field. 

HI. PSYCHOLOGICAL PRINCIPLE IN MODERN PEDAGOGY. 

Thus far, our examination shows us two things, the pedagogical ques- 
tion is at all times and in the last degree a psychological one. The 
previous criticisms have given us the right to turn from the two psy- 
chological systems which were, till now, busy in remodeling pedagogism, 
and to seek another psychological fundamental view of man. The author 
can not be blamed for returning to his own psychological results, which 
he has made known in his two principal works upon man, "Anthro- 
pology" and " Psychology," as also in his "Ethics." They will be here 
judged from a new point of view that we may learn if a more successful 
reform of education may be expected from them, than from previously 
accepted principles. 

At the same time, the curious fact will appear, that what our psychol- 
ogy ought to demand of a future educational theory, is already furnished 
us in the underlying thought of Frobel's educational method. Both 
agree in what we hold to be the decisive starting point of all in- 
structional reforms, while at the same time we must assert, that in both 
systems, this is not recognized or at least not sufHciently. Education 
can create nothing in the pupil, can not give him any thing from with- 
out; it can only develop into consciousness the talents which he 
already possesses, by arousing his activity. Only what he has produced 
in himself and can continue to produce, has an enduring valuQ, for that 
becomes a constituent part of his conscious being. Every thing else 
is an accidental or fleeting possession. Education and instruction should 
concern themselves with this latter only in a secondary degree, for it is 
only a means for that first and real aim of education. 

To realize the extensive importance of this axiom, we must consider 
the following : No sharp observer of men has ever been able to avoid 
the reflection, that every human individual, not only in consequence of 
his manner of living, but already in his earliest childhood, differs dis- 
tinctly from his companions who have grown up in the same circum- 
stances. It is well known, that children of the same father and mother 
are quite dissimilar from the beginning; that talents suddenly appear in 
the sons, of which the parents have never shown a trace, and that, on 
the contrar}', they lack capacities in which their ancestors were rich. A 
new intellectual element enters into that which is undeniably inherited, 
beyond the control of the parents, but is still of an origin prior to the 
consciousness of the individual. In another, the thread of inherited 
peculiarities is lost, or reappears periodically in the grandchildren. In 
20 



306 THE PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 

this, there is much that is apparently lawless and ambiguous ; but the 
more reliable is the universal fact, that each human being is peculiarly 
constructed, and not merelj'' a similar sample of his species ; that further, 
this peculiarity does not come to him from without, but is the most orig- 
inal dowry out of that region of his being, which precedes consciousness. 
It is just as undeniable an experience, that these original peculiarities 
are never fully extinguished or transformed into others, through life ; 
but that, instead, they are all which is really enduring in the changes of 
the same, and they peep involuntarily through the highest culture, 
through the best controlled character, quite perceptibly at least to the 
possessor. It is true of the human being, what the poet says, 

" So must thou be, canst not escape thyself. 
And neither time nor power can ever crumble 
The conscious forno which life develops." 

In more strongly endowed individuals, who on that account are called 
talented geniuses, this individuality is mostly a prevailing fundamental 
force, around which, as around a centre, the others gather and support 
it, or at least, are subordinate to it in strength. This force is never 
directed towards any thing merely Utopian and unreal ; but in deep, 
inner interchange with the objective world, finds in it its sure comple- 
ment, which finding, however, does not consist in passive reception, but 
in self-active appropriation. Every thing intellectually creative and 
progressive springs from such inherent, fundamental forces. 

It may be doubted, and this doubt would be a principal objection to 
the fundamental view of man which we here defend, if this quality of 
genius reaches down to the countless crowd of unimportant men, whom 
experience shows us, at a superficial glance, to be mere samples of the 
human species only, because of the worthless and disagreeable aspects 
which sensual impulses and passions have stamped upon them. If this 
doubt had any foundation, then mankind would be separated by a deep 
chasm, it would be a strictly divided double race ; on the one side, a 
thinly scattered community of intellectually gifted, progressive geniuses, 
on the other, a stationary mass, incapable of being intellectually aroused. 

The violence of the rent which would be the unavoidable consequence 
of this supposition, should teach us how daring and untimely such 
a conception would be. By the unlimited gradations of real culture, 
and possible capacity of culture, which are visible in the human race, it 
is actually impossible and contradictory to draw an absolute boi'der line 
between this side and that one, where genius might still exist, and 
where it might be completely extmguished. 

But experience contradicts this disparagement of the human race still 
more directly. Where we succeed in approaching the apparentlj^ most 
stupid race of human beings, that which is perverted by entire want of 
culture, or wholly incorrect culture, near enough to study it closely, we 
shall discover also in it the first beginnings of a present, or the (ruin- 
ous) remnants of a vanished cultivation. Not a tribe is so animalized, 



THfi PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 397 

that it is incapable of rising above mere natural needs ; every where we 
find attempts of human invention to improve the purely natural state, 
with the dimly working impulse, to choose practically among different 
means; every where we find the beginnings of customs and habits 
which regulate social life. But even the weakest examples of this hu- 
manity can not be thought of, without presupposing a creative capacity, 
not imposed from without, but originating within, w"hich responds to the 
willing imitation of the majority of mankind. In short, we must recog- 
nize also here a process of culture, small and of limited operation; but 
so weak and sporadic, that no progressive cultivation like that of the 
"civilized races" can be developed out of it. 

Psychology has treated all this, according to its deep, fundamental 
conditions, under the names of "active" and "passive," "imparting 
and receiving genius," sufficiently, to venture this assertion, based upon 
experience, that individuality is ever}-- where present in all human races. 
And the cherishing of just this element is assigned to education. 

This gives a much wider, thoroughly universal significance to educa- 
tion itself The more advanced civilized races can and must become 
educators of the backward ones, in a full and real sense; all the activity 
of foreign missions, all missions to the heathens, ought to have only 
this meaning and result ; i. e., it should offer nothing foreign, or obtrude 
its own outlived and decaying precepts ; but in the first place, develop 
the universal consciousness of human morality, and then, just as with 
the child, rouse the slumbering religious feelings, which, in the begin- 
ning, should not be in the least dogmatical. On the contrarj^ it is no 
secret, how httle in accordance with pedagogism the missionaries have ' 
performed their high work ; and thus it is clearly explained, why they 
have not succeeded in bringing forth healthy and lasting fruits. 

The foregoing shows that the uncertain results of single, "practical" 
observations, do not suffice finally and thoroughly for a decision upon 
the cardinal points of culture and education, but that neither does an 
abstract theory, made up of imperfect premises; that we must inquire 
of experience, and onl}"- of experience, but experience of the widest 
possible kind. The question is, what are the common fundamental im- 
pulses in man? 

To develop these, and to bring them into ruling and serving harmon)'- 
with each other, is certainly the real aim and highest success of educa- 
tion, in the collective people's life, as well as in the narrower province 
of pedagogism. But this success will first be assured, when the con- 
trolling fundamental forces are raised out of the natural form to the 
level of character, clear insight, and free, conscious will. This self 
emancipation, this transition from obedience and trusting subjection to 
authoritj^ to self- education and self-control, education should make its 
second principal aim, while it prepares the pupil through gradual de- 
velopment for that self-control. The starting point and goal of all ed- 
ucation and human culture is thus designated ; man's education is never 



308 



THE PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 



truly finished, as long as he lives. It should only be withdrawn more and 
more from outward influences, and enter into original, free, conscious 
self determination. 

Thus far, however, we have only given the framework of certain 
universal conceptions, which, as such, can claim to be truthful, but 
which are practically too abstract and indefinite to afford a basis for edu- 
cational laws. For that, it is necessary to study more closely our funda- 
mental impulses and their innermost relation to each other, also to dis- 
cover what "temperament" and what "character" signify, and how the 
direct natural form of the will may be raised gradually into character. 
All this, rich and comprehensive as it is, can only be disposed of by 
scientific psychology. May we be allowed to express the results of our 
researches in a brief statement ? 

1. Man enters life, through conception and birth, as a psychical indi- 
vidual, a specifically limited " sensuous being," along with other partially 
similar, partially lower beings, who are endowed with the impulses of 
this sensuous being. Seen in this light, man is only the impulse of self- 
preservation. It would be insufficient to say he has this, like other 
transitory impulses. For the uninterruptedly accompanying feeling 
(consciousness) of himself, changes as uninterruptedly into the impulse 
of the assertion (preservation) of himself. Therefore this impulse ac- 
companies him with equal certainty through the most various changes 
and disguises of real selfishness ; as its dual form (" individual " and 
" sexual " impulse) is the most energetic and obstinate. It must there- 
fore, in both respects, become the principal object of watchful educa- 
tional activity. 

That impulse appears in the child with the first signs of life, as yet 
only in an ingenuous natural form. It is far from conscious selfishness. 
But because of the feeling of weakness and helplessness, it acts involun- 
tarily, as self-aim, treating every thing else as a means. In opposition 
to this instinctive feeling for self, education must develop, as early as 
possible, the feeling of obedience, subjection to foreign authority. It 
will be shown out of what slumbering capacity this is possible. 

As long as the child is growing, and has not attained to the full feel- 
ing of his individuahty, only one side of the impulse of self-preserva- 
tion prevails, viz., the impulse of individuality. When the human 
being is advanced (grown up) to organic full personality, then there 
comes out upon the dark background of his being, which is based upon 
the oneness of the sexes, and includes all human individuals, the sexual 
impulse, the second form of the fundamental impulse. This, however, 
proves to be the mightiest and most profound form of the self-preserving 
impulse, because in it, not only the individual, but also the race is 
affirmed. Therefore, it works as something overpowerful, more than 
individual, in and through the individual ; it destroys involuntarily its 
reserved self-satisfaction, and compels it to open itself to the completing 
other, to find first in this union its self-satisfaction, — at the risk of losing 



THE PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 



309 



its individuality; so, surely, this inner relation of both impulses announ- 
ces already upon the plane of temperament, that the solitary individual 
is without value and importance, and first receives these when it yields 
self-sacrificingly to the whole, the race. 

Now it is most significant, and a strong proof that man, already con- 
sidered as a sensuous being, is more than a mere sensuous being, that 
sexual love, in order to preserve the human form, must be feelingly 
individualized from the heart. The one sex does not seek the other till 
an individually sympathetic choice takes place. The impulse receives 
the character of tender inclinations (gemijthsneigung), which for good 
reasons, is most easily recognized and prominent, as a normal appear- 
ance, in the sexual love of women. 

As the moral fostering of this impulse as a rule lies beyond real ed- 
ucation and should be left to self-education, we shall not consider these 
impoi-tant and interesting relations in the following remarks. But for 
the sake of comprehensive completeness, we will hint, that just the 
tender form of human sexual love should become the means of raising 
this whole province of feeling into the specially moral one. In mar- 
riage, in the family, the whole supplementary "idea of communion," 
the real principle of morality, is placed in direct, natural form before 
the eyes of men. 

Moreover, we must suggest, and this view is very important, that 
man is not yet really individuahzed within the sphere of the impulse of 
self-preservation, or as a sensuous being. That double impulse is com- 
mon to all without exception ; and it must be so, for it is the strong in- 
dispensable foundation, by means of which the individual and the race 
is able to assert itself; therefore, it is at the same time, the universal 
condition out of which the other individuahzing impulses can spring. 
The individual difference of that double impulse consists solely in the 
relatively, greater or smaller strength with which it maintains itself in the 
consciousness of different individuals, which degree of strength is also 
original and involuntary. It can indeed be modified by education and 
culture, but it is always essentially felt, and, where it is strong, needs 
constant, self-educating watchfulness. 

2. Now psychology proves through the presence of "ideas" in human 
consciousness, that man's individuality is not alone the sensuous and 
superficial one, whose fundamental impulse and its dependent instincts, 
as is the case in the animal world, reach their goal and destiny in the 
double preservation of the individual and species, but that man is at the 
same time intellectually individualized through the peculiar direction of 
his knowledge, feeling and will, in which all originally differ. We have 
called this individuality " genius," and already upon this ground assert- 
ed the universality of genius, as a point of experience. 

These points of individuality are, therefore, only the realizing means 
and the matter, in which this higher individuality forms itself Genius 
becomes sensualized by these natural conditions, but while it degrades 



310 THE PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 

them to its means, it spiritualizes them at the same time ; the human 
organization is elevated, gradually, to a copy as well as an instrument 
of the spirit. The former, in physiognomy, glance, voice, in all the 
bodily motions which mirror the intellectual character ; the latter in the 
practical functions and technical arts, in which the body is practiced ; 
finally, in the control and harmony of the sensuous feelings and impul- 
ses, which, being subjected to a spiritual aim of life, cease to claim in- 
dependent rights and to find their own aim in their gratification. We 
characterized this as "the making the impulses ethical" (ethisirung), 
and its collective result is what can be called human culture. 

The work of leading the growing being in all these ways toward hu- 
mane culture must begin at the beginning. This work is many sided and 
makes great demands, but its value is only introductory. It prepares 
man to become the capable active instrument of 'the idea'; but it does 
not awaken him to the consciousness of what the nature of the idea is, 
or in what peculiar form it is represented in his endowments. This is 
the essential, positive work of education, its centre and goal. 

For even as genius is that which truly individualizes man, so it is plain 
that the only purpose of human historical existence, is to develop this 
genius to its full, conscious realization, at least approximately, and in 
harmony with the conditions which its earthly existence and particular 
social position allow. 

But there is, in the first place, a highly injurious error to combat, an 
error which must paralyze all true educational progress, as it would prac- 
tically serve to justify all the retarding regulations in Germany, which we 
now lament. It is the almost universal idea, that genius is indeed a very 
desirable, but only exceptional gift of privileged intellects, of which no 
trace can be discovered among the majority of men ; but that education 
has only to consider this majority, the average of men. And this opin- 
ion is thus further expressed; that if that "highest" measure be ap- 
plied to education, it would become wholly impracticable, would neg- 
lect the common needs, and merge into an extravagant chase after the 
impossible, in order to satisfy an idealistic phantom. And indeed all the 
controversies against the " hollow educational theories of the present 
time," against the " haughtiness " which they nurse in man, against the 
rebellious spirit which denies all authority and even attacks the sancti- 
fied truths of faith, in short, all that which we see in education, state and 
church rising up against the new reformatory efforts, can be traced back to 
the common dogma, that the majority of men are only similar samples of 
their species, who must be led by authority, that nothing savoring of ge- 
nius, nothing peculiar, can be discovered in them, which would capaci- 
tate them for intellectual freedom and independence. 

This is really the old, truly pagan illusion, that an impassable divis- 
ion line exists in the human race, which destines the majority to believe, 
obey and serve, and provides only the few with the right to rule and 
command. Also, that the truths of faith are finished and complete, and , 



THE PEOBLEiM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. ^H 

that conscience has only to receive and submissively acknowledge them. 
Its maxim is, education should prepare the way for this spirit of submis- 
siveness. Formerly and again recently, various means for such educa- 
tional training, indeed a whole system of directions for it, have been con- 
trived. And even though the wiser rulers and teachers of the present 
have turned away from the generalities of that principle, they still do not 
dare to reject its consequences and workings and to clearly confess to 
themselves that education should strive towards just the opposite goal ; 
to develop the independence and peculiarities of men at all (fancied) 
risks, and in spite of all difficulties which lie in the way of the ful- 
fillment of this great work. 

The way in which individuality is still treated, when it appears, may 
serve as a proof, that this warning picture is not exaggerated. Where it 
really forces a path for itself, it can not be killed, but it is willingly al- 
lowed only in the impracticable province of art, or in the department of 
useful and practical inventions. When it seeks to work productively in 
the state, and church, in science and education, it is considered highly 
inimical and inconvenient and must expect most obstinate resistance. 

3. It will indeed not be easy to extirpate these fatal and far reaching 
errors in their principle and its roots. It can only be done,, finally and 
completely (which must be said, even though it will not be willingly 
heard), through philosophical culture, by exhaustive psychology and 
ethics, inasmuch as these actually prove, by a complete exposition of all 
the forms of genius (individuality), that in this genius alone lies the 
true and most effectual incentive to all the intercourse among men, 
which is not based upon direct sensual aims. Only because men's origi- 
nal capacities are intellectually different, are they involuntarily and con- 
stantlj'^ urged to mutual completion, even to the intercourse of the 
sexes. Altogether, each can arrive to full self-development only in sup- 
plementary association with others, influencing and being influenced by 
them. This is because others are able to offer them something peculiar, 
and also to receive the like from them, i. e., it is because of the originally 
different endowment of each, or as psychology expresses it, the relative 
"productive" and "receptive" genius. 

Further still this mutual devotion is the source of true morality. Men 
can enduringly and successfully conquer this most mighty, continually 
wakefid power within, this impulse of individuality (self preservation 
impulse) only by being compelled to subordinate and sacrifice himself for 
the good of others and the community. Only the mightier incentive, the 
higher love, is able effectually to weaken and obliterate the lower. 

But just this becomes the most enduring spring of man's self satisfac- 
tion, objectively of his perfection, subjectively and in the feeling of this 
perfection,^ of his felicity. Tt is so continually aflBrmed by experience, 
that this can be found, not in hollow brooding over one's self, or in self- 
ish plans and velleities, but alone in devotion to the community and in 
enthusiastic love for it, that it needs here no further proof. That com- 



312 THE PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 

munity is, therefore, with all which depends upon it and all which it 
helps to realize, the objective good for all, and for each, in a peculiar way 
his own good, the source of his perfection, of his morality, of his felicity. 

4. If now beyond all doubt the true goal of the collective education of 
youth, and of every continued self-education, is only to be found by 
making the individual more fit for that ethical intercourse, it follows 
that this can be done on principle and primarily, only by developing his 
intellectual faculties on all sides into consciousness, into free conscious 
possession and enjoyment, or, as ethics more clearly and universally ex- 
presses it, by raising man out of the form of temperament, which is ser- 
vile and instinctive, into that of character, which is conscious and self- 
recognizing. The forming of character in a word in that universal and 
pregnant sense, is the only goal of all education and the certain result of 
a successful one. 

Every other principle of education be it wholly or only partially at 
variance with these views, should be rejected as false, or at least insufiBc- 
ient. This conception can also serve as a critical rule, by which to clas- 
sify previous instructional theories, according to their worth or worth- 
lessness. For one who has not the richest and deepest conception of 
man, can not grasp fully, and not in its depths, the work of his educa- 
tion. Let it not be considered presuming, therefore, if we are obliged 
to assert, supported by those philosophic fundamental views of man, that 
the highest precepts of education have not yet been discovered, or if dis- 
covered, have at least not yet been referred to their final clearly con- 
scious principle. 

It can not be denied that the instinct of genius, a sure practical glance, 
has often hit upon the right thing; indeed it should be emphatically recog- 
nized. If it is demanded, which demand certainly can not be refused, that 
this partial success be insured, that the fundamental thought contained 
in it be raised to its full and enduring recognition an(t at the same time 
be realized for all pedagogical needs, this can be attained only through 
clear insight into principles, and the greater portion of this work is still 
left for the future to do, but for a future which may begin immediately ; 
for that highest principle is discovered, at least on the part of philoso- 
jthy through the theory of the universality of genius. 

IV. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE GENERAL PRrNCIPLES OF ALL EDUCATION, 

On another occasion we ventured the assertion, that the theory which we 
represent, is the first which, at least through its principle and with the de- 
cided consciousness of its opposition to all previous views, is qualified to 
found a science of the intellect, suitable to the present Christian plane of 
the world. For what it proves of the endowment which, previous to all 
experiments, lies in every human being, and which is destined to leave 
its concealment and appear in the light of consciousness, is precisely 
the same which the Christian faith has announced as its fundamental 
truth, which on the contrary was and always remained inaccessible to 



THE PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 3^3 

the ancient world, in oriental culture and in the reasonings of the 
classical people ; that all men without exception, are equal before God, 
because they are created in his "image," are his "children," i. e., are 
spirits in that words' deepest significance. 

This has henceforth become the new, practical principle of the Chris- 
tian world, containing a fullness and depth of blissful consequences, 
which have scarcely begun to be fiithomed. But at the same time, the 
whole experienced consciousness of a cultivation which develops all ideas 
Was necessary, in order to perceive the omnipresence and intensive power 
of genius, and to remodel after it the science of the intellect. 

We can say the same, and for just the same reason, of the principle 
of the education which is to satisfy the Christian era of the world. 

According to the fundamcjntal law of all intellectual life, that knowl- 
edge and theory can only be formed, when the /act has been ascertained, 
with all its power and essentiality, here also the correct method and the 
complete execution of the same, can first appear when all preparatory at- 
tempts have been tested, their unfitness discovered, and urgent practical 
needs have proved indisputably the necessity' of something new. 

We believe we have proved, in the foregoing remarks, that this moment 
has now arrived ; nevertheless it will surprise no one, if we add that, on 
this account, the direct practical demands should not be too exorbitant. 
Also for education, all the consequences of the Christian principle are not 
yet deduced, nay are scarccl}'^ hinted at. And when science does it, it 
should add the cautious acknowledgement, that this is only an ideal 
project, which can not be put into execution either immediately, or in all 
its parts simultaneously. Nevertheless, it is invaluable ; for it casts a 
sure light upon future development and the nearest problems, and, what is 
mo.st important, it shows what the only correct beginning of all educa- 
tion must be, to enable us to turn safely into the new road. It destroys 
forever false starting points and mistaken premises. Finally it offers a 
sure critical measure by which to recognize what was insufficient, false, 
even preposterous, in the previous practice. And it is also a very im- 
portant practical point, to devote the latter to destruction, unrelentingly 
and immediately. "To understand every thing" is not only to "forgive 
every thing" as was once correctly said, but also to designate clearly the 
limits of forgiveness and the moment of reform, in order to break the road 
decisively for the change. 

FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OP EDUCATION. 

The first axiom of Christian pedagogism, based upon the principle of 
the equality of all men before God — and just this is the fundamental 
truth of the new period — can only consist in this ; that equal education, 
nurture, and care should be furnished to each child, from the first mo- 
ment of being. The fact that this work is unattainable in its full ac- 
tual permanence, should not prevent us from seeking its solution, at least 
approximately, and step by step. 

(1.) It includes two things : All education should be popular or gene- 



gj^ THE PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 

ral, and the first object of this education should be to cherish the body 
and its health. This is the only thorough beginning of all education, for, 
as a solid ba.sis, it is indispensable to future culture. It will be shown 
at the close, what direct practical results of the highest importance follow 
from this principle. 

(2.) Hence, education should begin in the lap of the family and remain 
in this circle as long as possible. With this assertion, pedagogism 
reaches back to the ethical-political problem, to found a better family 
life, to cultivate proper parents, conscientious fathers, wise and dutiful 
mothers ; so that upon these conditions, the results of a better education 
must be already presupposed, in order to make the commencement of 
correct education for the future generation possible, otherwise it would 
never come to this commencement. 

The practical circle which here lies before us, meets us in all great 
problems of historical culture. What is new and what is to be in the 
future, must nevertheless already exist in order to insure that future for 
the community. Human history, or more correctly the more than 
human power ruling in human history, which we fittingly call " provi- 
dence," breaks this circle energetically by rousing up geniuses in the 
right places and at the moments of the greatest needs. To the future of 
what is to be, it sends beforehand more highly gifted individuals who, 
enthusiastically full of the new idea, hold up a picture of the same, as a 
problem, to the gaze of the backward race, and are thus the practical 
prophets of that future. In this way every idea of culture first en- 
tered into history; it urges on kindred minds, and these do not rest 
until they have given it its appropriate realization. 

It docs not follow from this, (and this fact should be noted), that the 
idea must appear, in its clearness and ripeness, in him who is first moved- 
by it, for much that is foreign and unsuitable to the fundamental princi- 
ple may indeed be mixed with it, either through incompleteness, or one 
sided extravagance. This classification must be left to the future ; and 
we shall also have grounds in the present case for referring to these fair 
cautions. 

(8.) The second axiom, the result of more thorough psychological in- 
sight, would read thus ; that education and instruction should bring 
nothing into the pupil from without, because indeed this is impossible 
if what is won is to become his lasting possession. The right educa- 
tion can only develop gradually the capacities which alreadj' exist in 
him, and that portion of instruction which is to be won by inculcation 
only, must be referred, as much as possible, to the self-activity of the pu- 
pil. On the whole the principle must be asserted ; no knowledge except 
it aims at development by performance. 

At a first glance, one would think that the more cultivated pedagogues 
of the present time must already coincide on this point. When we look 
more closely, however, we shall see that the necessary clearness in regard 
to the highest and final consequences of it, has not yet been attained. 



THE PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 3^5 

Also here, a profound antagonism of principles still divides the previous 
methods of education from those whose beginnings in the present and 
whose completion in the future we wish to vindicate. The wide-spread 
view which we saw strengthened by the theories of Herbart and Beneke 
holds that education with a certain omnipotence can, through the right 
application of artificial means, make what it chooses out of the pupil. 
This illusion rests mainly upon the prejudice that what is true, good, and 
holy can be imparted to man, can be taught him, and thus become a 
part of his mind forever, and make a new man of him. Daily experi- 
ence must convince educators and teachers of the people, that this is not 
possible. While they seek the cause of their failure in the wrong place, 
they neglect to attend to right and more effectual means, to the develop- 
ment of those high powers which arc originally given to man, but which 
these teachers wish to furnish him from without. 

(4.) Upon the neglect of what is inherent in man depends the funda- 
mental view which, in reHgious education, and in the most important 
part of instruction, the religious, has brought its injurious results into 
the present period, where it still strives to gain ground. It asserts that 
the "natural" man is cori'upted by the "fall," by "original sin," bur- 
dened with an original capacity for evil; out of himself, out of this natu- 
ralness, no good can come. He must be awakened by "grace," must be 
born again. But this "grace" can not come to him through or out of 
himself, but from without, through faith in divine revelations, and 
through the "way of salvation," described therein. 

We sureljf do not wish to ignore the deep eternal truth which is con- 
tained in these expressions, nor to attack it. But it must submit to being 
freed from its psychologically incorrect form, it will then expand in itself. 
The abrupt and dii-ect dualism which is arbitrarily erected between the 
natural and renewed spirit of man, will not escape a psychological revis- 
ion. It must be led back to the energetic distinction between "tempera- 
ment" and "character." If the hypothesis of the "fall" (historical or 
prehistorical) is necessary to explain the presence of "radical evil " in 
man, that is, as Kant very cautiously expresses it, " the predominant in- 
clination to receive into his will sensuous-selfish motives," it should be 
left to the decision of psychology, and pedagogism should not be bur- 
dened with its very precipitate consequences. The facts alone on which 
psychology is based will not be changed by it. 

The asserted outwardness of the appropriation of faith, and the histo- 
rical form which is given to revelation, must submit to a thorough cor- 
rection. They are not only unessential additions which may be carried 
as harmless ballast, but through the exclusive importance which is 'at- 
tached to them, they mislead one to mistake the real kernel of life in 
those truths, and lead to errors which have not only injured the religious 
life of the church, but also the effectual awakening of religion in young 
minds, — and religious pedagogism, the most important part of the whole. 

(5.) This finally brings us to the third, and most important point. 



316 THE PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 

What must be the highest goal and central point of all education and hu- 
man culture ? And here, least of all, can doubt or disagreement exist. 
"The formation of moral character," is this goal; the ancients called 
it " wisdom ;" the present time calls it, the rule of whatever is good 
and purely human, "humanity." There has never been any division 
in opinion, as to what is the nature of moral will, the character of "good- 
ness," the sign of humane intention for what is good, what ought to be, 
bears in itself its unmistakable, never denied token. 

(6.) An essential difference of opinion still exists about the road to this 
goal and the secondary conditions which insure its attainment, which we 
can not thoroughly discuss here (this was done in our previously men- 
tioned works), and in regard to which, therefore, it is sufficient to explain 
which of the two alternatives we choose. These are vital questions of such 
far reaching importance, that an exhaustive discussion of them would re- 
quire comprehensive expositions. If one may be allowed to refer to 
such, then he has the right to give a summary decision, without having 
to fear the reproach of superficialty or unnecessary arbitrariness. 

Some one speak of human, self-conceived moralitj^, either acquired or 
based upon instinct; of its being entirely independent of religion and 
pious emotions, and not in the least influenced by the religious emotions 
of fear or hope; and that it is self-sufficient and in itself its own re- 
ward, as it is only the involuntary expression of a noble nature full of 
humane feeling. We shall not omit to consider the claims of this view. 

(7.) If any are not satisfied with such sober morality, planted in mere 
unconscious impulses, and instinctive emotions, they mu.st remember 
that this morality, with all its forms and expres.sions, still continues upon 
the natural plane, has not risen to the form of conscious " character," 
alone worthy of man. They are the still dai'k and sporadically working 
unenlightened impulses of the originally present (a priori) idea of good, 
but which, mixed with other impulses as changeable, can offer no picture 
of conscious, therefore in itself certain, morality. Therefore, because it 
is wanting in continuance, this form of moralitj^ is a very frail dowry fop 
life, and it can not in the least give to man the inner satisfaction which 
religion yields him. Therefore, they further assert, with very good rea- 
son, that the perfected morality which is clearly conscious in its motives, 
the " ethos " upon the plane of character, can only be won within the pale 
of religion. For the will first frees itself from all wavering variance and 
deviation upon the plane of religious morality, because in each moral 
achievement, even down to the single deed, it seeks to satisfy only the 
one idea of goodness, (or as Kant more formally expresses it, " duty for 
duty's sake"). We have thus become one with the eternal will of good- 
ness, and its instrument, at least in intention and conscious sentiment. 
This conception is here decisive, because it first fully explains the whole 
fact of conscious morality. That an eternal will of goodness is in God 
we experience in ourselves, when we are truly moved by that moral en- 
thusiasm which transforms our self-will. For this reason morality has 



THE PROBLEM OP POPULAR EDUCATION. Ql^J 

become religion, not so that it alternates with religion or supplants it, but 
in this, that it perfects itself in religion by receiving from it the clearest 
and highest discernment of its own true being and with it, the feeling 
of sincerest self-certainty. 

(8.) True religion or piety in its culmination is nothing more than the 
continually present consciousness of the true source out of which we draw 
our moral strength, and through which, alone, every moral consumma- 
tion is possible. It is continual devotion to God, for it is conscious that 
it works only out of that highest and holy will ; hence it attributes all its 
single achievements to him, not to itself This is the deepest and indis- 
soluble oneness of religion and morality. Inverselj', this restores its 
highest value and essential truth to theoretical religion, in regard to what 
" faith " is, and what it is essential to teach. 

On the contrary, a morality without religion is without foundation and 
superficial, therefore cold and barren ; for it lacks its inspiring incentive. 
A religion without morality would be abstract and dead, a mere thing of 
perception, or better, an outwardly received faith, remaining a stranger 
to our innermost being. Both lack that enthusiasm which penetrates 
and sanctifies. 

(9.) The foregoing hints, while they can not scientifically exhaust the 
matter, are still full}' sufficient to conduct us, to the highest and conclud- 
ing axiom, in regard to the educational question. 

To rouse true piety in us, in the sense designated above, to make re- 
ligious opinion the constant supporter and companion of our life and 
deeds, must constitute the highest aim of education, the goal of all its 
special achievements; for the formation of moral character, in an endur- 
ing and clearly conscious manner, is only to be attained by (rue piety. 

Hence, the religious sentiment in the pupil should not be nourished in- 
cidentally ard sporadically^ but every thing in perception, emotion and 
will should awaken this sentiment, confirm it and help to found it in the 
right way. But this is only possible when religion wins a universally 
humane form, when it harmonizes with and is confirmed by all the most 
reliable researches of science, and by the noblest fruits which art and 
human culture are able to offer. 

(10.) The greatest injury however — and this pedagogical mistake 
ought, first of all, to be removed — is when the young deeply sensitive 
mind is expected to receive doctrines of faith which are unintelligible, in- 
deed wholly unapproachable by it, and which afterward — this is the 
unavoidable result — must be denied by his maturer judgment, and 
reckoned the trumpery of an obsolete religious culture. Thus, in the 
most important questions in regard to which man needs clear convic- 
tion from the beginning of his cultivation, doubt and discord are sown, 
where peace and the strongest confidence should be implanted. It is 
scarcely to be surveyed in detail how much has been missed or over- 
rated by wiser religious teachers, in the well-meant, but short-sighted 
fear of deviating from old traditions. But that the results are most un- 



318 '^^^ PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 

profitable, is shown by (he ineiBciency for after life of the religions cul- 
ture thus received. And indifference, dull listlessness are not the worst 
results of such a mistaken, wholly unpedagogical treatment of the most 
important subject. In stronger, more resolute spirits, disinclination and 
disgust are the natural results ! 

We acknowledge, that it is one of the most difiicult problems in the 
religious reform of our time — and no sensible person will deny the need 
of such a reform — to form something new and eternally valuable out of 
what is old and superfluous, gradually, and in such a waj'', that no of- 
fense shall be given to pious spirits, while what is superfluous shall be 
less and less valued. Perhaps it will be the best practical means of lead- 
ing the older part of the community to a freer, sincerer and clearer view of 
Christianity, when they see the wholesome workings of the same upon 
their children. Numerous attempts at an improved religious instruction 
have been made in Germany. None have been found reliable, and thus 
the subject has remained an open question. But it must be solved, be- 
cause of its urgent importance. A thorough, enduring reform can also 
here first come from above ; the future preacher should be allowed a 
free philosophical theological culture, he should be released from all dog- 
matical compulsion, and freedom should be afforded him to proclaim un- 
hindered his religious conviction as his own — as we have seen philoso- 
phers and naturalists, who have done this, have particular effect upon be- 
lievers also, because their word, bursting forth out of their independent 
convictions, just as convincingly worked — and from this renewed and 
deepened religious life at the head of the parish, a better and more ef- 
fective introduction into the Christian faith may be expected also for the 
growing believers. 

It is desired that the oil faith of our ancestors may be restored to us. 
We share in this wish with our most fervent convictions; v.e also are not 
willing to miss any of the power and blessings of this faith. But it can 
no longer be forced upon us with the old means ; no road leads back- 
ward. The new period must, in accordance with its collective culture, 
reconstruct it out of the eternally flowing spring of religion ; this new 
form docs not therefore reject what is historical in it, but wins it again in 
a full historical sense. And this is not merely an indefinite wish, a vain 
effort; the process of this "discernment of faith" has already begun. 
One must resign himself to it, only gazing forward and trusting to the 
indestructible power of religion, 

v. THE IDEA OF NATIONAL EDUCATION ACCORDING TO THIS PRINCIPLE. 

From this outline of universal principles, and the highest goal of all 
education, we may claim the right to decide the practical question also; 
where, in the present, is the only correct starting point given, from which 
to remodel education and instruction in accordance with the higher de- 
mands of our time? 

AYe can expect before hand, and our fatherland may be exceedingly 



THE PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 319 

proud of it, that this most important, not only national, but universally 
human question will first be solved in Germany, where it was first pro- 
posed. Just as the church reformation could only proceed out of the 
religious depths of the German spirit, so the two most important prob- 
lems of the present : a new reform of the church, growing out of a con- 
tinuously developed theology, and a national education which is also 
destined to be the elementary culture of the whole race can only be ex- 
pected from the energy and depth of the German mind. Both problems, 
however, the ecclesiastical as well as the pedagogical, are more interiorly 
connected than may seem at a glance. We have learned that all educa- 
tion finds in the cultivation of religious sentiment its final goal and 
firmest support. A more effectual and thorough religious education 
will be satisfied only with a spiritually renewed church, and inversely, 
religious education can go hand in hand only with a settled religious re- 
form. For the best understanding must exist between the liberal peda- 
gogue and the church believer, if it is to go well with the religious cul- 
ture of the parish. We will leave it to unprejudiced observers to judge 
if this harmon}^ already exists. In both respects we are referred to the 
future, but to a future whose commencements are already given. 

Pe^talozzi — Intuitional Method. 

As regards the pedagogical part, we have already proclaimed at the 
beginning of our article, and we believe we have thus asserted nothing 
new or objectionable, that we recognize that memorable starting point 
in Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, because he has discovered the only cor- 
rect foundation for the elementary education of the child. It may be 
still less known iii all circles, what in his intended educational and in- 
structional reform is eternally true and should be consistently developed. 
AVe consider it not yet superfluous to return to Pestalozzi's fundamental 
thought, in order to judge of its scope, and where something else, partly 
supplementary, and partly corrective, can be added. 

What we hold to be the really memoiable deed of Pestalozzi, what 
through him is forever won for human culture — is the simple truth, that 
a systematic development of the child's earliest consciousness must pre- 
cede all real instruction — an achievement full of infinite blessings, not 
only in its direct pedagogical operations, but also in the incidental, subor- 
dinate result, that it has opened the way for a physical care and hygiene 
of childhood, more in harmony with nature. And just here, Friedrich 
Frii'jel, his highly deserving follower, inaugurated his plan of reform. 
He has decidedly promoted that educational art of childhood, and if we 
'do not err, completed it. But there remains an unlimited amount of 
work to be done for the realization and propagation of this educational 
idea. There have been but few beginnings made and these are 
really sporadic and incidental, the varied, highly important work is not 
yet, as a whole and in the intrinsic parts, a national question. It must 
be raised up out of the sphere of mere personal and private effoits, it 



320 THE PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 

must be given to the legal organs of state government, to be put into 
execution. In what way, and within what limits, we sliall here show. 

Pestalozzi has confessed, with a touching conscientiousness, that nu- 
merous partially unsuccessful attempts were necessary, before he could see 
clearly into the fundamental thought of his educational reform. As it 
was merely a starting point which he won, and indeed only one of the 
starting points, as will be shown; as further he and his followers held 
the one for the whole: so it will be understood, how it could be spun out 
to such a superfluous and helpless breadth, that there was danger that 
the principle might be forgotten or overlooked. Pestalozzi designated the 
old style of instruction as the " monkish-go thic " educational indolence, 
congealed in superstitiously honored formulas. "We may have shaken 
off the " monkish -gothic," but not the countless remnants of superfluous 
trumpery, which every new educational method carries with it, as life- 
less dregs, and from which its representatives, through indolence or habit, 
expect the real success. 

Every educational method is in danger of this ossification, this diffu- 
sion into an unnecessary breadth, if it prematurely mistakes its details 
for generalities, the mere beginning for the end, the part for the whole. 
In this case what is unessential, changeable and indifferent will be over- 
rated, and an illusory value attached to it, which gives the opponents an 
unfailing opportunity to declare the whole principle to be false and worth- 
less. We must I'cmark already that Frobel's theory appears to have ar- 
rived at the same dangerous point which, in the beginning, threatened 
the method of his predecessor, Pestalozzi, and a chief design of the 
following discussions is to free it from this danger. 

Pestalozzi speaks with decisive clearness, in one of Jiis later works, of 
the principle of his educational and instructional method, at the same 
time indirectly designating its limits. 

" When I look back and ask myself what have I accomplished fop the 
progress of the human race, I find I have placed the first principle of in- 
struction in the recognition of intuition, as the absolute basis of all 
knowledge, and by the rejection of all single theories, sought to discover 
the essence of the theory (of learning and teaching) and the primal form, 
through which nature itself must determine the cultui'e of our race." 
By ''nature," Pestalozzi means here, as the sense of the whole requires, 
not the outwardly objective, but the interior nature of man, his original 
capacities. These and only these should be roused to self-consciousness, 
in order to discover the " primal form" of their culture. 

He expresses very clearly what he means by the cultivation of the 
" theory of intuition," by the "art of intuition." The "intuition," from 
which all knowledge must proceed, to which it must be referred, or 
through which it must be controlled, does not consist of passive acqui- 
escence, but of self-active reception. From the tenderest age, the child 
must be practiced in attentive observation, in discerning between what 
is accidental and essential, and must be guarded against all merely play- 



THE PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 221 

ful inspection. At the same time, the pedagogical intuition, by means of 
certain psychologically arranged exercises, must become the "art of in- 
tuition" which afterwards draws into its circle, moral, aesthetic and intel- 
lectual intuitions. 

Out of the " intuition" of the thing, won in this way, its " name " 
arises. (The child should hear no name which must remain for him 
empty word-sounds, which he can neither see nor understand ; a highly 
important unexceptional form of all instruction, which we still utter, as 
a warning, for all teachers of morality and religion.) After naming it, 
we should proceed to designate its qualities ; the definition, the distinct 
" conception " of the thing, is developed from its clear description. 
" Definitions without intuitions create a baseless, fungous wisdom which 
quickly dies under a cloudless sky, sunlight being the poison of its exis- 
tence." How true is this last remark of the immature and unfinished 
wisdom which is furnished to the child ! 

It is well known that Pestalozzi first developed this art of intuition 
from the simplest geometrical forms, from numbers and speech ; hence 
numbers, form and speech are the elementary objects of an analytical 
dissection which he has most extensively cultivated. Unfortunately for 
his method, it was long ago condemned, and not on its own account 
is it mentioned here, but only to warn against a similar fault in the 
present case. A method, fundamentally inspiriting and influential, can, 
by pausing too long at the beginning, work itself into an empty, burden- 
some formality which detains the pupil wearisomely upon the lowest 
plane. That which can and should enliven, has then just the opposite 
result, it becomes a deadening mechanism. Also what is unessential 
and incidental is easily stamped as essential and characteristic. Finally, 
unintellectual mediocrity takes hold of it, makes these unessentials the 
peculiar domain of its efforts, and caricatures a noble thing. 

What Pestalozzi, in the depth and originality of his conviction meant, 
and what has become the kindling spark, indeed still more what it can 
become, now and for all time, is the thought that only that can become 
the true and intellectual property of the child and also the man, which 
he has raised to transparent intuition i. e., thought through and through, 
and in free perceptive activity, brought forth out of himself. It is then 
for the first time one with his consciousness, his conviction, which he 
can commmand theoretically and practically every moment of his life. 

And it was this also which J. G. Fichte has greeted as the memora- 
ble deed of Pestalozzi, constituting an epoch, as the only means of heal- 
ing an age sunken in dead traditions. A national education, based 
upon this principle, and continued energetically through several genera- 
tions, must awaken a new popular spirit; even more, must place man in 
this latter period of his existence, "for the first time, upon his own 
feet." Verily, the often lamented, idealistic, extravagant boldness of 
this assertion, does not consist in this, that the thought is in itself false, 
or controvertible — it is rather perfectly evident — but essentially because 
21 



322 THE PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 

its execution is not impossible, but subject to very mediate, preliminary 
conditions ; hence that, in its intelligible operations, it can become 
visible only gradually and late. Fichte wanted immediate results; 
he wished the instant rise of a new generation through that means ; 
and in that he erred, or rather — in order to expose the essence of his 
reasonings — he wanted to fulfill a clearly recognized duty, to place that 
goal before all eyes, unconcerned, or leaving it undecided whether that 
goal could be reached through his suggestions or not. 

And yet neither Pestalozzi nor Fichte have spoken in vain. They 
flung the ferment into futurity; the claims of a national education are 
universally admitted, and its commencement established ; but its accom- 
plishments must be continually sifted and improved, by constant refer- 
ence to the principles on which it rests. 

VL WHAT THE PRESENT HAS ACCOMPLISHED THROUGH PESTALOZZI, STILL MORE 
THROUGH FR. FRUBEL. 

But this principle itself first needs to be supplemented and underlaid 
by a deeper lying, two-fold element. We must here consider two things, 
namely : — 

First, The earliest spiritual life of man, of the child, does not by any 
means consist chiefly in the appropriation and independent working up 
of the "intuitions," but intuition is preceded by sensations, involuntarily 
accompanied by "feelings" of comfort and discomfort, of acceptableness 
and offensiveness, whose collective contents must first be sifted, and 
separated into distinct groups, out of the obtrusive confusion with which 
they burden awakening consciousness. 

The child lies in a dull chaos of such sensations and feelings, which 
ceaselessly change and urge him on with them. How does he ever raise 
up out of this confusion any thing single and certain ; still more, how 
does he himself rise out of that flood, and " give birth to himself as I," 
as Fichte designates it, and in which he correctly finds the first germ of 
all that is specifically human ? 

Surely this "growing I," this self-birth of I, can still less be given him 
from without, poured into hira, than any thing else which he is himself to 
become. His own inner power must raise him to it. But the birth can 
be lightened, forwarded, the whole beginnings of consciousness contained 
in it gain an advantage in clearness and energy, which will place the pu- 
pil, thus cultivated, a grade higher in his general spiritual ability. 

This first transition of man to " I," to a more conscious, energetic, 

*In a pamphlet hitlierto little esteemed, written in 1807 for a particular occasion, "The Patriots," 
two conversations issued before the Address to the German nation, he makes the following retort, 
in answer to the inquiry " whether he really hoped to persuade those who stand in the high 
places of the nation so much as to grasp the idea of a national system of education, not to men- 
tion the resolution to incur the necessary expense of such a system V 

"As I have already stated, I do not care to make up my mind as to what is or is not to be 
hoped ; and among all the obscurities which may exist in my knowledge, this is the only one 
which I am well content to endure, and which I do not wish to have cleared up." 



THE PRODLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 



323 



finally inseparable self-comprehension, in opposition to all outwardness 
(all not I) ; this absolutely epoch-making transition (for human existence), 
must not be left to chance or the unsystematized operations of the 
child's first surroundings, but education must strive to guide him by 
psychological art, if he is to become conscious of his correct beginning. 

This is done, in the first pla*ce, by clearing up the earliest conscious- 
ness as to its elementary sensations, according to a firm rule and a grada- 
tion in which the consciousness itself develops. The child must first be 
made capable of deciding whether he is hungry or sleepy, whether he 
tastes or smells, etc. Out of this the discrimination between the various 
sensuous regions must develop, and tlie elementary sensations within the 
same, the fundamental colors, simplest figures and proportions of sound 
fundamental tastes, and whatever else in this region of sensation and 
feeling is found capable of culture, must be brought to plainly discernin"- 
consciousness; and what is inseparable from it, be designated by fixed 
signs. Here is the true beginning of the "theory of words," and not 
as Pestalozzi thinks, in the naming of already finished objects, burdened 
with complicated qualities, in order, as he says, " to make the pupil ac- 
quainted as early as possible with the whole compass of the word and 
names of familiar things." This, on the contrary, plunges the pupil 
immediately into the misty world of opaque, unintelligible and thence 
for him, empty ideas, and imparts to him the first sample of all later su- 
perficiality of discernment ; he is satisfied now, as well as later with 
transmitted words, instead of really recognized objects. All that the 
pupil upon this plane can really understand and consequently designate, 
is the world of sensations and feelings which he has lived ; it is also for 
him, that which is first evident and irrevocable, in which he can first ex- 
perience the highly important, even through dim consciousness of con- 
viction, according to the decisive canon of all education and all human 
culture, that, only that has become our conviction, which we have in- 
wardly experienced and thus embodied in our consciousness. 

This then, is the first foundation which should be laid under Pes- 
talozzi's theory. The "A. B. C. of intuition" which he gave in his 
"Book for Mothers," should be preceded by an "A. B. C. of sensations 
and feelings," which should be the very first book for mothers. It will 
be shown what has been done toward such an one. But we must re- 
mark that in just these beginnings of education which are to be left to 
the mother, or fixmily surroundings, the execution will always remain 
most defective and insufficient. What mother is in the position, even 
though she were intellectually sufficiently cultivated, to devote her- 
self to the youngest child, aside from the others, so as to make its sensa- 
tions and feelings clear to it, and to keep its first attempts at speech in 
continual and exact relation to these sensations and feelings! 

And this is the perfectly coinciding objection which can be made to 
the introduction of such exercises, particularly when they strive after 
a certain systematic thoroughness, as indeed has already been attempted. 



324 THE PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Hence, though we hold fast to the general thought, we must neverthe- 
less still declare such systematic breadth theoretically superfluous, prac- 
tically even wearying and weakening ; for it is not necessary, for the 
pedagogical aim, to experiment with the child through the whole system 
of human senses and sensuous feelings, but rather to waken it to a con- 
sciousness of what is nearest and most obtrusive, and within this com- 
pass at least, accustom it to give close attention. 

Notwithstanding this, or perhaps on this account, it is necessary for a 
complete system of pedagogics to designate this problem, at least in its 
general outlines, and to call attention to its fundamental significance for 
the life of childhood, leaving to a detailed practice to use what it 
can of it. We will show later what Frcibel has done in this direction. 
But the nature of man is by no means merely theoretical, least of 
all the nature of the child. The impulse of self activity is just as origi- 
nally awake in him ; and, as in his later life, his actions and knowledge 
must continually harmonize, so also must that inherent impulse of activity 
be early developed in the child, led into regulated paths, and also be made 
the earliest element of his cultivation. By these means, the real central 
point of the intellect, the inner unit of its inseparable theoretical and 
practical forces is first touched ; for in reality, there can be no knowl- 
edge which, through its involuntarily accompanying feeling, does not call 
forth a fixed practical conduct, just as, inversely, each practical fulfill- 
ment must be guided by theoretical activity (thus involuntarily awak- 
ening attention and judgment) upon the development of knowledge. 

First, and this is the second, still more important supplement 
which FrObel — for he must be referred to again here — has added to 
Pestalozzi's method. He has gone back to the original impulse of ac- 
tivity in the child ("impulse of play"), and has made a fruitful ground 
of varied preparatory cultivation out of this previously neglected, barren 
or ranklj'-growing spiritual element. This is what is new and memora- 
ble in his pedagogical accomplishment. But we are first able to appreciate 
this, when we understand the fundamental thought of his system. 

"We also believe, we should not consider ourselves obliged to follow all 
of Frobel's propositions, directions, and precepts. To us, these seem 
often to be lost in trifles and peculiarities, even in extravagances or 
absurdities. And these externals which have been seized and cherished 
by his common followers, have obscured the great importance of his 
pedagogical principles, or at least have prevented their universal recog- 
nition. Instead of such externals, we must obtain possession of the 
deeper lying, fundamental thought which is capable of most varied and 
heterogeneous cultivation, and adapt the practical application of the same 
to the given circumstances. 

FrObel is the psychologian of the life of childhood. With rare individ- 
uality and instinctive comprehension, he has thought himself back into 
the beginnings of the child, and, permeated by the deeply religious and 
humane belief that primitive human nature can contain nothing false 



THE PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 



325 



or delusive, seeks only to develop its inherent capacity, gradually, and in 
every direction. This is the collective work of earliest education. 

Therefore, this education, at first, must offer nothing new to the child, 
plant in him nothing alien ; neither can it do it, it can only call forth 
what was already concealed and present in hitn. For the young, grow- 
ing, human being will yet wish, even though unconsciously, for what 
is best in itself and for him, and moreover, in the appropriate form which 
he feels he has the capacity, power and means to produce as can be ex- 
plained by analogous examples of animal life. Hence, every active, 
prescribing, determining and encroaching theory, instruction or educa- 
tion, must necessarily operate destructively upon the normal human being. 

This fundamental thought which Frubel continually enjoins in all its 
variations, leads to a deeper one which has also not escaped his notice. 
He expresses this only axiomatically indeed, in the following form. 

"In every thing there rules and operates an "eternal law," which is 
always expressed with equal clearness, outwardly in nature, inwardly in 
the spirit, and in life, which is the union of the two. An omnipotent unit 
underlies this omnipotent law — God. The Godlikeness reposes, operates 
and rules in all things. And all things exist only through the Godlike- 
ness which operates in them, and the Godlikeness operating in every 
thing is the essence of this thing. 

" Therefore the destination and the vocation of every thing, is to develop 
and represent its essence, its Godlikeness, to manifest and reveal God, 
through outwardness and transitoriness. 

" The particular destination, the particular vocation of every perceiving 
and reasonable human being is to become himself, fully conscious of his 
essence, his Godlikeness, to win a vigorous and clear insight into it, so 
as to practice it, self-determinedly and freely in his own life, and to make 
it effectual in all the directions which are prefigured in his inner 
capacity. 

" The awakening (the treatment of man as a being of growing con- 
sciousness) to the inviolate representation of the inner law, of the God- 
likeness, with consciousness and self determination, and the supplying of 
the means for it, is the education of man." 

" The aim of education is the representation of a dutiful, pure, invio- 
late and therefore holy life; the Godlikeness in man, his essence, is to be 
developed and raised to consciousness by education, and thus he is to 
attain self knowledge, peace with the world, and union with God." 

Thus, for him, the whole human culture culminates in religion. It is 
for him at the same time the starting point, centre and goal of all true, 
successful education. But this religious education urges immediately to 
industry. " As early culture is highly important for religion, so is it just 
as important for genuine industry. Early labor, its inner significance 
judiciously directed, enhances and confirms religion. Religion without 
industry is in danger of becoming empty dreaminess; just as labor 
without religion makes of man a beast of burden and a machine. But 



326 THE PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 

religion and labor should not only operate outwardly, they should also 
react upon the interior man. Thus abstinence, temperance and econo- 
my will be produced. AVhere religion, diligence and sobriety work in 
union, there is an earthly heaven, there is peace, joy, grace and 
blessing." 

The fundamental condition of all this, however, is, that each shall 
really find in life his appropriate vocation, the destination which his 
being demands, or at least, that education shall prepare him for it, and 
thoroughly capacitate him for the fulfillment of such vocation. 

But the practical application of these pedagogical principles shows 
immediately a highly important result. Where education really permits 
an unhindered, inviolate development of the original capacities, there the 
inherent diversity among individuals becomes instantly visible, in con- 
sequence of which, each child, even though only in the germ, is distin- 
guishable from other children. It follows from this, that the correct, 
conscientious education must never generalize, but instead, must be cal- 
culated for the individual capacity. 

But this result is not less important for the psychological view of man, 
than for pedagogism. It is the actual proof won by careful pedagogical 
observations : first, that each otherwise healthy and normal human 
being, a fixed variety of spiritual capacities and impulses unite in the 
unit of essence, through which it is distinguished from all the rest of its 
kind ; secondly, that these capacities and their peculiar union do not, 
through education or artificial culture, enter into him from without, but 
that they are present in him, as an original dowry, before his conscious- 
ness develops, and are the conditions of the development of that con- 
sciousness, are what maybe called the " Godlikeness " speaking after 
Frubel's manner, and according to our own definition, the "genius" or 
individuality of each mind. 

Branching off a moment into philosophical definitions, we express it in 
other words : FrObel found, through pedagogical insight and personal 
experience, the same thesis which the psychological study of man shovvs, 
as its highest and deepest result. It is what we have called the "uni- 
versal prevalence of genius " in the human race. 

That nevertheless this only scientifically recognized truth, if it should 
become universal conviction, if it should enter into life with all its prac- 
tical consequences, would cause a complete transformation of our civil 
and social affairs, would open to us a kingdom of freedom " by the grace 
of God," — this assertion will not seem extravagant, when we have learn- 
ed what the root of all the misery, discontent and moral corruption 
of the human race really is ; the stinting, the restriction, even the at- 
tempted extermination, of its original capacities. 

We must leave this path of ever increasing depravity; and in this 
simple demand, all the various social problems of the present can be 
summed up. And it also includes the solution of the religious problem, 
that the spirit of Christianity, become for the first time, a complete truth. 



THE PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 32 Y 

Neither is it necessary to show how immeasurably important educa- 
tion is for this process of the restoration of humanity. The first obliga- 
tory condition of return lies in it, and it is able to prove through its suc- 
cessful accomplishment, that such a return is possible. What man in 
his " obscure strivings " is capable of becoming, he perhaps will finally 
become upon earth we do not yet know it, because the correct all- 
awakening education could never yet reach him, or only rarely and ex- 
ceptionally, and even then imperfectly — an education which no single 
arrangement will ever be able to vouchsafe, which can be completely 
successful only in a highly cultivated commonwealth. Therefore, it is 
the next, most urgent and most indispensable problem of this common- 
wealth, this state, to pledge every thing for a thorough reform of the 
educational system. The states of the present period, at least those of 
German lineage, generally recognize this duty, but are on the whole very 
far from applying the right means for its fulfillment. They seldom ad- 
vance beyond an experimental, blind groping, whose unavoidable results 
are mistakes, even retrogressions, and the spoiling of otherwise healthy 
beginnings. In the foregoing we referred to examples of this kind, which 
are based upon a thorough misunderstanding of the real needs and 
the appropriate means. 

VII. THE EDUCATION OF CHILDHOOD ACCORDING TO FRuBEL. 

In the foregoing, the highest criterion was found by which to judge, 
not only of the value of education, but also of the only correct educa- 
tional method. According to these premises, we can scarcely be accused 
of over-valuation, if we find in Frubel's theory, the only correct starting 
point for the national education of the present time. Not however, 
the peculiarity of the propositions and arrangements on which Frubel 
first stamped his principle, but his principle in itself, has that value for 
us ; for it possesses a fruitfulness and power of development, which might 
be made effectual in directions as yet untried. We shall show still 
more definitely what we mean to say by this. 

First, we must recognize FrObel as that educator of the newer time, 
who has succeeded, with full consciousness and clearness as to the conse- 
quences contained therein, in paving the way for a system of education 
which completely corresponds to the maturer insight of modern psy- 
chology, indeed alone forms its pedagogical supplement. As we have 
also proved — no matter if this is every where effectively recognized, or not 
— that the real and eternal, fundamental truth of Christianity lies in 
that higher, • merely humane recognition of the being of man ; so this 
educational theory then, is the only one which corresponds to the true 
spirit of Christianity, and consequently will be equal, wholly and com- 
pletely, to the demands of the Christian era of the future, even though 
this future may not yet be fully understood, in that spirit, either by 
the educators or by our present civil rulers. 

Frubel's essential and exclusive service is in having perceived more 



328 THE PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 

deeply the nature and needs of the child, on its first plane of life, than 
any one before him, and in having found the means to meet these needs. 

The means which he devised, are manifold and ingenious ; but they are 
not artificial ; they are drawn out of the child's own nature. They can 
all be reduced to the highest law of all education. FrObel called it "the 
law of the mediation of opposites," thus recalling too generally and too 
strongly, the formulas of the then ruling philosophy. Perhaps it would 
more clearly designate FrObel's achievements to call it the law of the 
continuous, even development of the child's consciousness out of its own 
activities. Madame Marenholtz, who has a deep understanding of FrO- 
bel's, idea concentrates this thought very happily in the three phrases, 
"freedom of development, labor of development, and connection of de- 
velopment." 

Accordingly, Frubel demands that bodily and spiritual development 
shall be united from the first, and that this development shall begin 
with the beginning of childhood. He thus continues and completes what 
Jean Paul in his Levana began by single hints. He has thus founded an 
educational system for the infant and supplied a deficiency which Pesta- 
lozzi left untouched. The entire nature of the child upon this plane, 
consists in being the appropriating eye. Hence he must receive the first, 
simplest, sensations as powerfully and as completely as possible, and 
never in a confusing mass. He must be early accustomed to a certain 
order and consistency, that he may dimly feel that he is subject to a 
higher, beneficent power. In this way the germ of the desire of ruling, 
the principle of "selfishness," which exists in every child, for the pro- 
tection of its helplessness, will be led from the start in the right direc- 
tion and grow into a habit of subordination and grateful obedience. 
"It is highly important for the present and future life of the human be- 
ing, that it should imbibe upon this plane, nothing sickly, low, coarse, 
nothing doubtful or bad. Therefore, the glance, the expression of the 
persons surrounding it, should be pure, and calculated to awaken and 
cherish confidence ; all surroundings of air, light, space, should be pure." 

The first feeling in common which unites the child with its mother 
and brothers and sisters, is the earliest germ of genuine religion. Dimly 
anticipating, the child gains thus, and also through the habit of whole- 
some obedience, the feeling of being supported by an all-embracing, sav- 
ing, beneficent power; and thus the healthy germ is planted in his mind, 
which will bring him nearer and in the only right manner, to the idea of 
God. If father and mother wish to furnish their children with this nev- 
er-wavering, never-vanishing hold, as the highest dowry for life, then pa- 
rents and children must always appear united, if they feel and recognize 
themselves in union with their God and Father, whether in their silent 
chamber, or under the blue heavens. No one need say that the children 
do not understand it ; they understand it, not in the definition, but in 
their interior being. The religiousness, (sincere union with God), in all 
circumstances and situations of life, which does not grow up with the 



THE PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 329 

human being from childhood, will later, seldom rise to a full, strong vital 
force ; as also, a germinated and cherished religious sentiment will win 
the victory against all the storms and dangers of life." 

These are FrObel's essential educational principles for the first epoch of 
the child's life, but in regard to which, it must be mentioned that he has 
unavoidably presupposed much which belongs first to the following stage 
of consciousness. This is also true of what he says about the earliest 
cultivation of the religious feeling. We admit however, indeed we repeat 
emphatically, that he has in general, designated the only correct starting 
point for the development of the child's religious consciousness. It 
would be well to consider the reform of the religious instruction from 
this point also. 

If it is considered necessary to hang balls in the cradle for the earliest 
cultivation of the child's intuitive capacities, that it may gradually be im- 
pressed by the most perfect geometrical figure, the sphere ; further, if 
these balls, of the box with six balls, according to the "first play-gift," 
are to show alternately the three primitive, and the three mixed colors, 
arranged in prismatic order, and to teach him, as is hoped, "the dis- 
crimination of colors, and the law of opposites, when between two prim- 
itive colors the mediation is placed;" these, like many other things which 
a playful system has further devised, are things of disputable value, 
whose application must be treated as an open question. Opponents, as 
well as disciples must be careful not to seek in such things the real spirit 
of the method, and the typical sign in which its being is clearest and 
most evident. It is high time in our judgment we went beyond this. 

Fortunately, we do not stand alone in our view of the subject. One 
of the most judicious advocates of FrObel's theory. Bertha von Maren- 
holtz-Biilow, whom we can designate as the best living representative of 
his educational work, insists in her lectures and writings, that we must 
grasp the fundamental thought of his method, selecting freely out of 
what he has proposed for the execution of the details. This excellent 
lady, filled with the noblest enthusiasm for the cause, has to WMge a double 
battle : First, with the prejudices which rise up from without against the 
principle, and Second, with the members of her own party, who make the 
broad spinning out of details their chief object, and thus react upon the 
spirit of the method, paralyzing it, and causing it to be misunderstood. 
With reference to this point, she expresses herself thus; "FrObel's mind 
selected and arranged the matter, the forms, colors, and tones, in the ele- 
mentary simplicity in which they can penetrate the child's soill, without 
disturbing the stillness of its budding life, without awakening it violently 
or artificially out of its slumber, and without stifling the glimmering 
spiritual spark in the ashes of materialism. He found the rule under 
whose guidance the motherly instinct can proceed safely and freely, in 
order to find the right." 

With the appearance of language, the nursling period ceases and that 
of childhood begins. This is the child's essential playtime ; and here we 



330 THE PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 

meet one of FrObel's happiest and peculiar inventions. He has organiz- 
ed play and developed it to a complete system of practice of the child's 
power and self-activity ; every where making use of the impulses and 
instincts of the child, and what is not less significant and worthy of re- 
commendation, keeping the child as much as possible in intercourse with 
visible nature, and teaching it to observe nature's regular transactions. 

Hence FrObel says correctly, in this sense; "Play is the purest intel- 
lectual production of the human being, in this stage and also the 
model and copy of the entire human life, of the inner, secret, natural life 
of man. It gives birth therefore, to peace, freedom, satisfaction and 
quiet peace with the world, inwardly and outwardly, the sources of 
all good repose in the child, and proceed out of him. A child who plays 
capably, with quiet self-activity, and perseveringly until overcome by 
physical weariness, will become (if later education does not destroy the 
foundation thus laid), a capable quietly persevering man who self-sacri- 
flcingly promotes his own and others' good. The plays of this age are 
the heart-leaves of the whole future life, for the whole man is visible in 
them, in his finest capacities, in his innermost being." We think this is 
excellently said ; in the instinct for a certain kind of play and sphere of 
play, the child's inherent capacities and intellectual tendency, upon the 
correct knowledge of which the succeeding education has to build, be- 
tray themselves earliest, most involuntarily and therefore, most reliably. 

We do not think it necessary to go into the details of this system of 
plays. In this field, Frcibel has elaborated with skillful and exhaustive 
perseverance, all forms of play, in order not to disregard any part of the 
child's capacity and need of cultivation, ^hat the symbolical-didactic 
meaning of these plays may not be overlooked, he has furnished each 
with a commentary of short verses accompanied by a song. 

He must have intended to work more upon the parents and educators 
with this didactic accompaniment, than upon the children. For we 
think he mistakes entirely the nature of the child, when he declares it 
capable, while playing, or through the play, of becoming conscious, even 
with only half a reflection, of its particular design or its higher signifi- 
cance. It is absorbed, as it should be, in the interest of the pure activ- 
ity of play; therefore, only those kinds of play can be recommended 
which develop without any secondary meaning or reflection, the physical 
or intellectual capacity, as the "play of motion," little gymnastic exer- 
cises, " the building plays," " the braiding plaj's " that practice them in 
forming and inventing, and the highly important and emphatically to be 
recommended "garden plays," in which the children are led to cultivate 
the beds of their common garden, one of which each child should own 
and care for. Flowers, fruits and vegetables are raised here, and these 
serve, by watching and examining, to make the still course of nature's 
laws clear to the child's apprehension in actual results, " if he can not go 
out into the fields or woods, in order to watch nature there in her work- 
shop, to learn to sing from the birds and to observe the insects." 

" The child should grow up under the influences of nature. There it 



THE PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 33 J 

should gradually learn that laws underlie all organic formation ; should, 
through the loving care of animals and plants, prepare itself for the lov- 
ing care of human beings, should, in imitating the works, find and love 
the great Master as the Creator of nature, and its own Creator, should 
breathe in the peace which rules in nature and in the occupations with 
it, before the noise of the world and sin enter its breast." 

These are indeed, eternally true principles of education and capable 
of endless application ; the Kindergarten has only to strive more and 
more after their realization, to be certain of its blessing. But it must 
avoid what is superfluous and small, or where this has already crept in, 
throw it overboard as injurious ballast, so as not to compromise and in- 
jure the idea. And if FrObel's example should only prevent the crowd- 
ing of the children into small, close city buildings, and send the infant 
and other schools out into gardens, or garden surroundings, he would 
have accomplished a very important work. Also the crowding together 
of children is one of the most prominent evils, because it prevents all 
pedagogiL-al individualization and paralyzes educational activity. FrObel 
wished to limit the number of children in one Kindergarten, to thirty 
or forty, so that one teacher could completely oversee and lead them. 
All these evils and hindrances to success can only very gradually be re- 
moved. But it is our next duty to pave the way for their introduction 
and diffusion by a growing understanding of the subject. 

These important aims and their consequent, but slowly spreading re- 
sults, however, can for this very reason, no longer be left to the single or 
temporary activity of benevolent, private persons and private societies. 
A durable, all-embracing systematically-progressive organization should 
be secured to them, and tliis can be accomplished only by the state and 
the communities. But Frubel's educational precepts must henceforth 
become the altogether controlling principles of state pedagogism ; and the 
Kindergartens in which a part of these ideas has been cairied out, must, 
as we shall also demand for the Krippen (creches), be introduced into 
the system of the educational institutions of the state and the commune. 

The suitable point of connection already exists. The need of so called 
'child-saving institutions' for children from three to six years of age, is 
universally acknowledged, and in the richer communities of our cities 
and villages is supplied as far as the means allow. To raise these ' sav- 
ing institutions ' already existing, or yet to be erected, to those higher 
organized "play-schools," should be the next step, and is not too difficult, 
if we can find suitable teachers. 

This however, calls for the solution of another question of our time, 
which also belongs to the most urgent ; to open new spheres of calling 
and branches of labor for the female sex. We will speak again of this 
part of the pedagogical question. 

The fear, that all these reforms will heap financial sacrifices upon 
the state and community, which, with the present taxes, are scarcely 
able to secur§ a scanty income, to the already existing teachers — this 
continually repeated consideration must not be a reason for detracting 



332 



THE PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 



from the well founded right of such demands. It is, on the contrary, 
one reason more why this many sided provisional condition in which we 
live, in civil intercourse and in social arrangements, can have no dura- 
tion, and should be shortened by all lawful means. It would be extreme- 
ly inconsistent to wish to postpone the necessary reforms to a better fu- 
ture, with the oft repeated excuse that they are impossible or even pre- 
sumptive, or revolutionary. What is proved to be necessary is never 
revolutionary, but rather truly conservative. And that can not be pro- 
nounced impossible, whose first preparatory grades already exist, and 
are easily recognizable. Nothing more is necessary, than a correct be- 
ginning and persevering progress upon the chosen road. It is variously 
shown, also by this opportunity, that the only right commencement for 
the improvement of the people's condition, is in educational reform. 

VIII. THE KRIPPEN-DAY NURSERIES. 

FrObel left a gap in the starting point of his educational theory, which 
the present trial has fortunately filled. And the means is planned so en- 
tirely in his sphit, that it can be consistently inserted into the system of 
educational institutions projected by him. 

The earliest period of childhood, as its own nature and general custom 
require, should be passed in the family circle. Here, the mother is every 
thing at once ; she nurses it, rears it and waits on it, and what is most im- 
portant for the child and what repays her best, she cherishes the soul of 
her child. But how few among the mothers of the working classes in 
the country and in cities, are in a position to fulfill this vocation even 
approximately ! And those who could do it (outwardly), do it only im- 
perfectly, either diverted by other cares or interests, or they lack the in- 
tellectual ability, whilst a mass of ineradicable prejudices and false hab- 
its rule them, and tlius often make a very doubtful nurse out of a moth- 
, er whose duty'it is to bestow the best care upon her children. Hence a 
normal school for mothers, which is not theoretical but practical, which 
shall teach by example, is an important, almost indispensable element in 
the system of popular education. 

Accordingly, here, as in the higher grades of instruction and educa- 
tion, the universal family, the community, should furnish the assisting 
supplement, by erecting an asylum in which mothers can leave their 
nurslings under a conscientious, rational oversight, without however 
withdrawing their care from them entirely, or becoming in the least alien- 
ated from them. For it should be the rule, that children should be re- 
ceived only through the daytime, and taken home again by their mothers 
in the evening. The double significance of this arrangement is not to 
be mistaken ; the tenderest age of the child is cared for sufficiently with- 
out loosening the family ties, and the mothers witness a model of ra- 
tional childish training, whose value is established by experience. They 
learn, and are themselves indirectly educated by it. 

This aim, the public protecting institutions for children, called " Krip- 
pen" (creches), in memory of Christ's manger and the latest creation of 



THE PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 333 

pedagogical benevolence seek to fill. In their limited peculiarity, they 
received their perfection first in Paris, while we must mention, that pro- 
tecting institutions for children, from their third year, were introduced 
into Germany and in England, much earlier. It was the humane Prin- 
cess Pauline of Lippe Detmold, who erected the first children's protect- 
ing institution which soon spread over all Germanj^, and latterly, was 
particularly fostered by the "inner mission." In England, it was the 
great socialist Robert Owen, who incited by a plain man of his village, 
J. "Buchanan, first founded a children's protecting institution and school. 
The example worked more slowly there than in Germany, because its 
first appearance seemed united with ideas of socialism, whose impracti- 
cability could not be ignored. The clergy, particularly, opposed obsti- 
nately and effectually all these efforts. So it happened, if we are not 
mistaken, that this important member of a system of popular education, 
has not been energetically developed, that it is still left sporadically and 
accidentally to the care of benevolent individuals and associations. 

In France, in Paris, as we have already mentioned, the system of pro- 
tecting institutions for children, has been completed and perfected, by 
this important, even indispensable member. Mafbeau, member of a 
committee for children's protecting institutions in Paris, first grasped the 
idea of such an institute, in order to displace by it, the institutions for 
nurslings, which, as the enterprises of private speculation, beyond the 
reach of public control, operated injuriously, rather than usefully. He 
proposed to remove these evils by forming public societies ; his plan was 
supported, and thus under the protection of the Duchess Helene of Or- 
leans, the first "Krippe" was erected in Paris, 14th November, 1844 
From Paris, this institution spread over France, Belgium (where in Brus- 
sels a model Krippe exists), Germany (Vienna, Dresden, Munich, Stutt- 
gart since 1868), England (London, Manchester), etc. A model Krippe 
in the exhibition at Paris, 1867, excited the attention of thousands of vis- 
itors, and was the cause, as our informant saj-s, of banishing many false 
judgments and many an apparently well founded doubt. 

The arrangement of the Krippe is essentially the following. Every 
week-day, the mother brings her child to the institution in the early 
morning hours and goes after it again in the evening. She either pays 
notliing for it, or a small contribution — in Paris from six to twelve sous, 
in London three pence, in Vienna, three kreuzersper da)'; the child is 
taken care of, fed, bathed, busied with the first classified attempts at 
play (preparations for the " Kindergarten ") and generally dressed. Every 
institution is -under the constant care of a regular physician, and the 
further control of a voluntary committee of ladies. On Sundays and 
holidays, the institutions are closed, because there is no urgent need of 
them, and also, so as not to wean the children from family life. 

The results which, according to the report of the committee, through 
Mons. de Malarce, the Krippen show as the fruit of their long existence, 
are favorably portrayed and seem very credible ; for they correspond to 
what was expected of them. Weakly, neglected, sickly children have 



334 THE PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 

recovered rapidly ; also their morals were thoroughly improved. Irrita- 
bility, self-will, restlessness, which had made them burdensome to their 
parents, particularly to the father, disappeared gradually, under uniform, 
quiet, patient treatment. They grew daily better behaved, and thus dear- 
er to their parents ; an important promoter of family discomfort thus 
disappeared forever, and the parents, particularly the mothers, received 
the wholesome instruction how children should be trained, how human 
beings should in general be treated, in order to work favorably upon 
them. My informant comprises all in this; " that the " Krippe " is not 
only to be considered as the asylum of unprotected children, but, if it is 
carried out in the right spirit, and under conscientious superintendence, 
it can attain the next and just as important double aim ; to become the 
earliest school of cultivation for children (ecole du premier age), and a 
normal school for parents, especially for mothers (ecole normale des 
meres), in which they can learn how to treat their children physically 
and morally." For all these reasons, he demands their general introduc- 
tion into the systems of public institutions for popular education. 

With this, he touches a subject which deserves the most urgent con- 
sideration ; for just this is the junction, w'here all the most important 
interests of the family and state unite. It is a wide-spread complaint, 
that the mortality of children in the first period of their lives, is fright- 
fully great. It is well known that its cause is to be sought in the mis- 
taken care, or entire want of care of them, often the result of unsettled 
family life ; and thus the cause of the mortality of children, is closely 
connected with the uncultivated condition of our people. 

Here, at the origin of the evil, the first lever of remedy must be ap- 
plied. This is also the first, most practicable and most direct means. 
The social question of the present can not be solved, before the pedagog- 
ical problem of the care of unprotected childhood is solved. The social 
problem is ramified, highly complicated, and scarcely to be grasped in its 
whole extent. It is divided into a series of the most difficult propositions 
of a political, financial, ethical and pedagogical nature, and no civil wis- 
dom has yet shown itself equal to the task. Its solutions perhaps, be- 
long to a distant future. It is different with this important, partial prop- 
osition. The energetic introduction of "Krippcn," of protecting insti- 
tutions for early childhood in general, is not dependent upon preparatory 
intermediate grades. It can immediately follow, when it has become, as 
it deserves, the object of the general public care. By the obligations, un- 
der which the state and the community are, for the fostering of j^outhful 
culture, and by the increasing greatness of the evils which are to be com- 
bated, it can be demanded henceforth, from state and community, that 
every where, where regulated instruction exists, protecting institutions for 
earliest childhood shall be added. The monied sacrifice, necessary for 
it, can not be considered, for it would be barbarous and shameless, for 
parents to wish to escape this duty. The opposition of irrationality or 
habit, wherever it appears, must be broken down ; this belongs to the in- 
disputable "guardian" duties of the state. 



THE PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 



335 



The judicious proposals of the medical authorities whom we have men- 
tioned above, show us how every thing is already prepared for the reali- 
zation of this highly important aim, how the means need only to be or- 
ganized, in order to make with them an effectual beginning. In regard 
to this, I quote the the following : — 

" The pastor, as the shepherd of his parish, whose physical and spirit- 
ual weal are dear to him, will find this subject worthy of his attention, 
and ecclesiastical and also municipal authorities will realize how close- 
ly the same is coimected with the physical and moial well-being of the 
community. There are two classes of vocations, pre-eminently in whose 
power it lies, to work beneficently, or to breed mischief; the surgeons 
who are nearest the people, and their first advisers in matters of health, 
and the midvvives who, beside their care of the new-born babe, wield and 
are called upon to wield a great influence upon its later nurture. Both 
should well preserve the good which they have learned in their schools, 
realize it for the general good, and not sink back into the prejudices of 
the people, or, in order to please them and win their fovor, support 
them in error. Both these classes should also closely observe the limits 
where their authority and capacities stop, in order not to do injury by 
encroaching upon the medicinal province lying beyond their vocation. 

"A broad field is here opened for individuals and societies, in the sense 
of humanity and good works. So much is said about the care for the 
physical and moral well being of the working people ; prizes have been 
bestowed for it in the Paris exhibition. In addition to other things may 
the new born children of the workmen be cared for, and the example of 
a factory owner in Alsace be imitated, who allowed his working women, 
six weeks after the birth, to cherish and nurse their children and also la- 
ter, allowed them at certain times of the day, to nurse them without les- 
sening their wages. In England, ladies' societies exist, which make it 
their business to spread b}-^ word and deed ideas of a reasonable nurture 
of the infants within their circle. Where only two or three in one place 
unite and take hold rightly of the matter, there, their labor will be salu- 
tary. An object of particular attention should be the illegitimate chil- 
dren who are put out to board, and whose lot is the worst, and whose 
mortality is the greatest. Further, the Krippen, as benevolent institu- 
tions belong here, in practical, simple and inexpensive abodes, for the 
protection and nurture of infants, through the day, while their parents 
are absent from home at work." 

It is clear, that in all these cases the support of mothers, particularly, 
and of the female sex generally, must be relied upon. But we must 
not stop half way, leaving it to ladies, unorganized and unprepared (be- 
cause unacquainted with the true nature of their duties,) of the higher 
" cultivated ranks," to form a committee which alternately, or occasion- 
ally shall oversee the nurture of the children, which, in the main, is trust- 
ed to inferior salaried persons. With this, one seldom rises above a very 
injurious dilcttanteism which allows room for secondary interests and 
thoughts, and the deep earnoRtness of the work is mistaken, the contin- 



336 THE PROBLEM OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 

uous conscientiousness of its execution neglected. "We find it only suf- 
ficient for the importance of the subject, that women, deeply moved by 
the holiness of their vocation, should consecrate themselves to it, with 
undivided interest, and that they should have passed through a prepara- 
torj' school for it. 

The point of connection for all this already exists, — the " inner mis- 
sion" has made the nurture of children one of its works. But it has 
been done only singly, and more as an experiment, than as a perfectly or- 
ganized execution, also with almost invisible operations, in view of the 
immense greatness of the need. The state, the community have not 
met it halfway, have not yet supported and enlarged the single attempts; 
much less, received the whole institution into the organization of popular 
education whose starting point and foundation it must become. 

The time has now arrived for these demands. The work is great, but 
possible ; for in small ways it is already performed, and the preliminary 
conditions of a greater execution lie every where ready. The zeal and 
devotion of private individuals is insufficient ; they must join larger socie- 
ties, or call them forth. But above all, the state is called upon, because 
it alone holds all the threads in its hands, and controls all the factors 
whose united operations are necessary ; viz., the pedagogical and the 
medical powers of the land, and chiefly, the influence of the state upon 
the communities. And as the necessary means, so at least, the German 
Chambers have never refused to allow the state the sura necessary for 
purposes of popular education ; they have often granted even more than 
was wished or asked for. Where is there a more evident obligation for 
the state, a more urgent need for the people and the community, than to 
provide for the protection and first education of childhood, every where, 
where the care of the family is insufficient. 

A law for the introduction of Krippcn and Kindergartens in every com- 
munity of the land, would surely meet with objection in no German 
Chambers, from no political party ; for this is no party aflfair, but the 
people's aifair, in the noblest and most peculiar sense. 

In conclusion, we will mention another aspect of the subject which 
must be considered here. It has often been felt and also publicly ex- 
pressed, that woman's social position must be different in the future, 
more independent for herself, more important for the community. Hence, 
new vocations have been sought after, so as to provide the unmarried 
and the needy with a secure and respectable position in life. Inappro- 
priate palliatives have been proposed, to place girls in railroad and tele- 
graph offices, or to employ them in subordinate services in the law de- 
partment. It is not disputed, that they are capable for these positions; 
just as little also, should this appropriate occupation be grudged. 



^ 



DJTERNATIOXAL EDUCATIONAL CONGRESS 

AT BRUSSELS IN AUGUST, 1880. 



The Belgian Edttcational League, a national association of the 
progressive teachers and school men of Belgium, which has held monthly- 
meetings for papers and discussion on the organization, administration, 
instruction, and discipline of schools of every grade, public, private, and 
ecclesiastical, in Belgium, has made arrangements to hold a General 
Assembly of Teachers and Educators in Brussels, from August 22d to the 
29th inclusive — under the honorary presidency of the Minister of Public 
Instruction. 

The Executive Committee, appointed by the League, is composed of 
men of eminent practical ability, of which H. Augustus Couvreur is 
President, and M. Charles Buls, Secretary-General. 

The original call, issued more than a year ago, was signed by many 
prominent educators from all the states of Europe, and the recent Circular 
of the General Committee bears the names of some three hundred individ- 
uals connected with the Ministry of Public Instruction, the universities^ 
the normal schools, and other institutions and the Public Press in their 
several countries. 

The programme of proceedings issued by the General Committee coa- 
tains over ninety subjects, on which special papers or discussions are 
invited, and in the main provided for. These subjects are assigned to six 
sections, viz. : (1) Primary Instiraction, including Creches', Kindergarten, 
infant schools, etc. ; (2) Secondary Instruction ; (3) Superior Instruction; (4) 
Special Schools, professional, technical, agricultural, commercial, nor- 
mal ; (5) Adult Education ; (G) School Hygiene. Each section has a secre- 
tar3% and will hold sectional meetings, and certain topics belonging to 
each section will be presented in written papers, and for discussion in the 
general meeting of the whole congress. 

The congress is composed of regular and associate members. All may 
take part in the deliberations who register their aames, thereby agreeing 
to the general regulations. Regular members will pay a fee of twenty 
francs, and will be entitled to a copy of the printed transactions, and to 
three ladies' tickets to the meetings of the congress. Certificated male 
and female teachers, and professors of secondary schools may become 
regular members by paying a fee of ten francs. 

Educational Societies and corporations can send delegates. 

Speakers and contributors of papers can use any language they prefer — 
and if not in French, the substance of the speeches and papers will be 
translated by officers of the congress. 

For circular giving the topics to be discussed and other information, 
address Commissioner John Eaton, Bureau of Education, Department of 
the Interior, Washington, who will forward any correspondence of those 
who wish to become members for the purpose of attendance, or to receive 
the reports. Henry Barnard, 

Member qf Oeneral Committee. 



338 INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OP EDUCATION. 

Proceedings.* 

The delegates, and their associates from different countries, repre- 
senting every class and grade of instruction from the Kindergarten 
to the University met in the Hall of the Athenee Royal, the great 
Secondary School of Brussels, on the morning of August 22, 1880, 
and were vpelcomed by the president of the General Committee, and 
the Minister of Public Instruction, " to the open deliberations of a 
Congress called to advance the intellectual, material, and moral 
progress of mankind." 

Volume of Prelimmary Reports. 

Each member vras presented with a royal octavo volume of 962 
pages entitled Rapports Prelimmaires, made up by the Executive Com- 
mittee out of the Reports which had been forwarded to the Corres- 
ponding Secretary, in response to assignments made by them six 
mouths in advance, of topics representing the principal phases of the 
educational problems of the present time, and which could or might 
be presented for written or oral discussion in the several sections to 
which the different subjects were distributed. It is a volume of great 
permanent value to all educators, and if it were the only result of the 
Congress, would justify the originators in calling such a Congress 
together. The volume or volumes of the regular proceedings of the 
Sectional and General Meetings of the Congress have not yet come 

to hand. 

Section 1. — Primary Education. 

The Section devoted to Primary Education was organized in two 
Divisions, A. and B. In Division A. the Educational System of 
Froebel was largely considered, its originality and value universally 
admitted, and the position taken that every elementary teacher should 
give evidence of having mastered its principles and methods. The 
necessity of a Transition Class between the Kindergarten and the 
Primary School was shown, as well as some modifications in the 
classes and insi[ruction of the latter, by which the intuitional teaching 
of the former, and individual development began under Froebel's 
system could be continued through the entire course. 

(*f the Rapports Preliminaries in the Section of Primary Instruc- 
tion devoted to the Froebel System and the Kindergarten we shall 
publi-h those by Jules Guilliaume, Brussels ; M. Fischer, President 
of the Vienna Froebel Society; M. Sluys, Director of Model School 
of the Belgium League; Madame de Portugal), Instructress of Infant 
School in Canton, Geneva, and Miss Caroline Progler, Directress of 
•the Special Course for Kindergartners in Geneva. 

* See Americau Jouxnal -of Education, Vol. xxxi ; p. 1-8. 



FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF FROEBEL'S SYSTEM. 

BY A. S. FISCHER. 

President of the Kindergarten Society at Vienna. 



QUESTIOXS PROPOUXDED FOR THE BRUSSELS CONGRESS. 

Has the Frobel system given auy grouud for well-founded criticisms ? 
Is there need of a special normal training for Kindnergartners ? 
Is it proper to apply the principles of Frobel in primary instruction, and by what 
means can this be done? 

No system of education has had as many partisans and adversaries 
as that of Frobel. If this fact does not furnish the best demonstration 
of the piactical importance and extraordinary scope of this system, 
still it deserves a thorough examination on account of the bitter and 
constantly repeated attacks in the hope of overthrowing it, and of the 
courageous and persevering efforts of its partisans to confirm and 
secure it. The bases of this work are already indicated in the question 
mentioned above ; we shall find them in the fact that Frobel's system 
needs ulterior developments, but also that it is in the highest degree 
susceptible of them. 

Whoever has taken the trouble to learn the principles of Frobel in 
his works, and to penetrate into the spirit of his system, must have 
found that we are obliged to recognize in this pedagogue the true 
psychology of the life of childhood. Long before his day, the impor- 
tance and necessity of an educating influence in the first peiiod of life 
had been felt, but no one had discovered the means of conducting and 
hastening the development of the mind and body in the earliest years. 
Comenius and Pestalozzi had preferred to pursue the development of 
the first ideas by the education of the senses, which was to precede all 
instruction, properly so called. We know very well all that Pestalozzi 
did to reform teaching in general, by the recognition of intuition as 
the absolute foundation of every notion. As the '' Book for Mothers " 
points out, he wished to exercise the child from its tenderest years in 
attentively examining, in distinguishing w-hat is only accidental from 
what is the very nature of the object ; he wished, by determined 
psychological exercises to fashion the intuition by the art of examining. 
Yet as man cannot be considered merely as a being seeking to know, 
but also as a being of sensibility; since we cannot consider him com- 
plete except with the two faculties, we must also take into account his 
need of activity as soon as he enters into relation with his fellow mor- 
tals. Pestalozzi considered knowing without aptitude as the most 
fearful gift which a malevolent geniu^ could bestow upon man. But 
in spite of all his investigations he did not find the simplest means by 
whose assistance art can educate the cliild from the cradle up to the 
sixth year. It is consequently no small merit in Frobel to have recog- 

339 



340 FURTHER DEVELOP]MENT OF FROEBEL'S SYSI^M, 

• 
nized better and more profoundly than all his predecessors the nature 

and wants of the child, and to have found at the same time the means 
of satisfying these wants. If, in spite of the diversity of the plays 
and occupations imagined by Frobel, in spite of the ingenious mode of 
their arrangement for the kindergartens, in which they have been ex- 
clusively used until now, the latter are still struggling to make known 
their utility ; the reason of this is to be found less in the system of 
Frobel than in the broad development of his fundamental ideas, in the 
mixture of what is chimerical and merely accessory with the important 
and truly valuable things, and finally in the practical application of 
his ideas by his successors. 

CRITICISM ON FEOEBEL SYSTEM CONSIDERED. 

In the first place Frobel is indefinite ; on one side philosophic reflec- 
tions serve as a basis for the application of a simple game, that of ball, 
with which children have been amused from time immemorial without 
racking their brains about it ; on another side they are lost in puerilities, 
oddities and absurdities. These external appearances have obscured 
his magnificent pedagogical principles, and have prevented many people 
from seeking their more profound and diversified uses, and giving 
them the desired scope. This is especially the case with the plays on 
which Frobel discants in a striking manner, although with emphasis in 
certain passages in his works. He seeks and finds in every play of 
the child unity and correlations and influence upon its future years. 
But the child imitates in his way what he sees adults do, and does not 
wish, as Frobel thinks, to have a presentiment of his future years in 
his plays. He lives in the present and the present furnishes the 
aliment necessary to his need of imitation and representation. To 
give an aim or a more profound meaning to the play is, to injure its 
direct and immediate utility and thereby to annihilate all the child's 
pleasure. When in the movement plays we direct the child's attention 
to what he is doing ; if we lead him to reflect upon the happiness and 
innocence of childhood ; if we force him to sing the beauties of nature, 
the peace and concord that reign in the village, the play loses all its 
savor, all the seasoning which give it a charm in his eyes. 

A second defect consists in the form of Frobel's poems. Certainly 
he is fully in the right in considering poetry an essential means in the 
education of the child, and in wishing to utilize it as such. Is not 
childhood itself the age of poetry ? And cannot every mother, every 
educator convince himself of the salutary effect of appropriate poetry 
upon the child ? But let it all be poetry and not insipid prose, however 
moral. How many rhymed platitudes, void of meaning, we find in the 
"Mother Songs?" When the defenders of the cause justly think that 
Frobel in this part of his poetry only wished to show mothers in what 
way they were to exercise the minds and limbs of their little darlings, 
but did not intend to constrain them as to the form, and that he never 
offered himself as a model, we can but ask them why they have pre- 



FURTHER DEVELOP.AIEXT OF FROEBEL'S SYSTEM. 341 

served this form which they deem iiisuitable, thus injuring the reputa- 
tion of their master without use to the cause itself? Is it not nonsense 
and want of reflection to put into the mouths of older children the 
songs Frobel composed for the mothers so that they might sing to their 
infants? When for instance the baby of the kindergarten sings 
"Does my child know how to turn his little hand?" It is the same 
with the ball plays. In the " 100 ball songs," most of the songs are 
beyond the reach of the child, and are to be counted among the most 
injurious ones because they accustom the children too easily to what is 
ordinai-y and destroy the joy that belongs to the true plays. If the 
mother, however, can use any of these common-place things, with her 
infant, when every sound from her mouth, every intonation of her 
voice has a fixed meaning, when each one of her words awakens the 
child's life, it appears unnatural to let these rhymed allegories and 
personifications be sung in the kindergartens. Where could we see the 
demonstration of a natural development when the impressions that the 
form and color of the ball make upon the child are sung in the follow- 
ing manner : " Let me see it on the right and on the left, let me turn 
it this way and that, it still looks like a round ball on every side ? " 

Or thus : " My dress is blue like the sky, mine is green like the 
meadows in spring," etc. And yet these phrases are pointed out as 
coming from the personal observation and experience of the child. 
The ball may and ought to preserve its rights in the kindergartens as 
at home and in the streets ; but let the children play ball as they have 
been accustomed to do in the company of their little comrades, and let 
them practice the exercises which their strength permits and not con- 
strain them by systematic motions. 

It is the same with the other gifts of Frobel. Is it natural to initiate 
the child at two years of age into the notions of time and space, as for 
example, when the mother sings : " The ball occupies its place, so 
where it is the cube cannot be ? " Or this sentence : " He who desires 
much veiy easily loses what little belongs to him." 

We acknowledge in general that songs are an important means in 
education, especially for the heart, we only speak here of their abuse. 

In the first place, singing is a magnificent means of teaching children 
speech. In singing they are constrained to articulate the words ; sing- 
ing therefore is an excellent way in which to correct many a defect 
which children show on their entrance into the kindergarten in relation 
to language and the volubility of speech. So singing facilitates the 
execution of different plays (plays of the ring and marching), in 
which it is important for those who are playing to observe an equal 
movement regulated by the exactitude of the measure. But we must 
not abuse this gift of the Creator. Frobel does this when he wishes 
every play and every occupation to be accompanied by songs. There 
is a little song for every ball play ; they sing when building, when 
arranging the little sticks, before, during and after their work. 



342 FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF FRUEBELS SYSTEM. 

Is there any need of proof that this unnatural method is injurious 
to the development of the child in more than one point of view? We 
know that in tlie best kindergartens every thing is not accompanied 
by singing, but in the diiferent collections of songs published by the 
partisans of kindergartens, we find little unformed and insignificant 
songs and we have a right to suppose that they are put there for some 
other reason than the literary interest they may inspire. Then let us 
remove these purely didactic songs which are unsuitable for children, 
and replace them by true children's songs set to national music. 

The occupations, partly imagined, partly found by Frobel in the 
world of childhood, but which he brought together with the aim of 
making them serve for a systematic development of all the powers, ex- 
ercise the internal and external senses of the child (sight, heai-ing, 
touch, the senses of form, color, size and number), in order to hasten 
the exact perception of objects, their signs and their properties, and to 
put children in a condition to translate inniiediately all these apprecia- 
tions by external representation and thus to strengthen their observing 
faculties. But here, Frobel has not known how to keep a certain 
moderation. He wishes to neglect no side susceptible of perfectibility 
in the child, but he uses many things that are too fatiguing for children 
of such tender age, too much above their reach, and uses precious time 
in these mistaken ways. He thus misses the aim of education. There 
is one very important point of view, too little seen heretofore, which 
the following considerations will touch upon. 

Each occupation must answer to the individual degree of develop- 
ment of the intellectual and physical strength of the child, and v\e 
must carefully set aside all those whose execution requires a greater 
skill or the use of implements with which the child might hurt him- 
self ; we must observe the characteristics of each mode of representa- 
tion, for without severely setting the limits of each of these modes, the 
sense of form would not be assisted, but falsified. In the discussion 
of the occupations we must then keep rigorously to the limits indicated 
by the intelligence of the child. Let the free activity of the child 
have full scope ; every occupation we offer him is as welcome to him as 
the assistance kindly offered him ; but after every demonstration let 
him have the opportunity to try his own experiment; that will ensure 
the best success, as every thing does which is acquired by one's self. 
Finally, as the kindergarten is not exclusively to serve the children of 
well-to-do families, as it is to be made an institution for the education 
of the children of the people, it must take into view the practical value 
and utility of an occupation for future use. 

According to these principles, the following occupations are to be 
used in the kindergartens : building ; making forms with little planes 
and sticks ; the use of rings, small shells and stones ; folding and 
weaving of paper ; braiding, embroidering, drawing, modeling. In all 
these occupations certain limits are to be observed in regard to the 



FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF FROEBEL'S SYSTEM, 343 

separate exercises. Every exercise that consists in tying knots or prick- 
ing is to be rejected entirely ; paper-cutting and pea-work should be 
reserved for the oldest pupils just before they leave the kindergarten 
for the school. 

Building gives the child a free career for his activity, which inquires 
and fashions at the same time. The first two building boxes are suf- 
ficient for this, the box contaiiiing eight equal cubes, and the one con- 
taining eight equal bricks. For older children may be added a few 
round or quadrangular columns, a few arches and forms for roofs 
necessary for the representation of buildings, bridges and porticoes. 
"We have special legard for the architectural forms ; we prefer them 
to the constructions sometimes made in representation of such ob- 
jects as bottles, kegs, etc., whose forms contrast too much with the 
angular projections of the materials, thus sinning in favor of the 
lively fancy of the child who finds the most distant analogies between 
objects ; but it is something else to permit the activity of the child in 
free invention, and intentionally to falsify his judgment.* 

The conversations upon the forms of construction should be limited to 
what is immediately before the operator. Every useless fact should be 
avoided as well as the songs that accompany every form, and the 
mathematical considerations for which the children are not yet ripe. 
The building exercises may be used throughout the whole course of the 
kindergarten instruction, if due regard is had to the degree of intelli- 
gence in the children. 

The laying of planes will well exercise the senses of form and color. 
The little planes should be painted for this end, and each form (quad- 
rilaterals and different kinds of triangles) should have two colors. In 
laying the geometric forms, as w^ell as the artistic ones, care should be 
had to arrange the colors in a truly aesthetic manner, so that each color 
should be opposite its complimentary one. This occupation should be 
given to children already somewhat developed, those for instance who 
are five years old, to whom can be left the individual invention of the 
forms. 

The laying of little sticks, preferably the square sticks, is particularly 
adapted to develop the sense of form and the faculty of representation. 
As these little sticks represent only the outlines of forms, their use 



*Mr. Fischer does not justify himself for this departure from Frobel's series of 
forms. Why not use the fifth and sixth gifts in building, which furnish roofs and 
columns sufficient for all purposes, while the things he interpolates cannot be coor- 
dinated with the rest of Frobel's building material, all which has its relations to 
forms used in other occupations ? Why destroy the wonderful unity of design which 
Is one of the characteristics of Frobel's materials ? Mr. Fischer goes a little too far in 
the direction of others who have endeavored to improve upon Frobel in this country, 
to suit genuine Frobelians, while in his previous modifications he has not lost the 
spirit of the great master, but only vindicated Frobel's own broadness of view, for 
Frobel wished every teacher to use his judgment in the distribution and assignment 
of the material.— TV. 



344 FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF FROEBEL'S SYSTEM. 

is an excellent preparation for drawing. It is well to have these 
little sticks of different colors. By their aid the children can also get 
a clear idea of numbers. It is also one of the favorite occupations of 
the youngest children. Hitherto the most absurd forms have been at- 
tempted with these little sticks, such as flower-pots, carrots, ponds for 
fishes, carriages, etc. The little stiff stick is absolutely out of place in 
the representation of all curvilinear outlines, even when cracked, which 
does not destroy its rigidity. The imagination of forms should not be 
falsified in such a way. The contours so made are unnatural. A child 
naturally taught, whose judgment has not been falsified by any con- 
straint, would sooner take up some clay in order to represent a flower- 
pot or a turnip. The representation of letters and figures with these 
little sticks also is an injury to the aesthetic sense, and anticipates in 
an inexcusable manner what belongs to the school. It is like " Lina's " 
learning to read and write when six years old with little sticks, in- 
stead of sitting before the reading tablet with a pencil in her hand. 

We must avoid also going too far in counting. It is enough for the 
children in a kindergarten to know how to count as far as ten or twelve ; 
let them go so far, as the clock strikes twelve times, and let them know 
the elementary combinations of the numbers, as 2 + 2 etc. Geometri- 
cal notions should be developed only to a very moderate degree.* 

The laying of circles and semi-circles only allows the formation of 
aesthetic forms, which always contribute to the development of the 
aesthetic sense ; some common forms can also be represented by the 
combination of rings and little sticks. To trace contours by the assist- 
ance of fragments (fractions) of circles is a very good manual exercise, 
but not before the childi'en have reached the age of 5 years. The pre- 
liminary exercises with 1 to 3 fragments are too tedious for little chil- 
dren ; a definite form can only be formed with 4 fragments. 

With little stones and shells, which children can collect themselves in 
abundance, many simple and graceful forms can be made. This occu- 
pation deserves more attention than it has hitherto received. 

Folding, which necessitates a certain skill in the fingers, and great 
accuracy in laying the papers exactly, had better be put off till the age 
of 5 years. For a long time this exercise should be confined to the 
reproduction of known forms, like letter envelopes, fish, salt cellars ; 
the representation of more complicated forms should be very gradually 
attempted and also a few artistic and geometric forms. 

Weaving and embroidering are well known and favorite occupations in 



•For the earliest development of geometrical notions, nothing is better than to draw 
a circle upon the blackboard, and by degrees divide it, first by a diameter into semi- 
circles, another time make another diameter perpendicular to the first one, thus show- 
ing the four right angles, and subsequently show acute angles of various sizes, and 
lastly an obtuse angle. Such a circle standing permanently on the corner of the black- 
board will frequently be found useful in a kindergarten for reference about 
angles.— Tr. 



FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF FROEBEL'S SYSTEM. 345 

kindergartens. In these works the cultivation of the {esthetic sense 
should never be lost sight of ; it has hitherto been too much disregarded. 
It is falsified by combinations of incongruous colors and by tasteless 
forms, such as that of the harlequin, for instance.* Here we take occa- 
sion to repeat that in the choice of occupations, along with the value of 
the culture, we must never lose sight of the use which the child 
can make of them in the future. 

We are entirely in accord with these who object to choosing the occu- 
pations of the kindergarten solely in reference to their future economi- 
cal value, but the weaving of straw as well as of paper has an 
educational as well as pecuniary value, and may be introduced into the 
people's kindergartens. 

Frobel himself described the merits of drawing for the kindergarten 
in the following words : " Drawing is one of the most important means 
of development for early childhood, because by the aid of drawing the 
simplest materials and the smallest effort of physical strength are suffi- 
cient to enable one to recognize quickly and easily what a child is capa- 
ple of doing by himself." True and exact as is this thought, wisely 
considered as Frohel's guide to drawing is, the reproach which we 
have uttered before, condemns its indefinite extension. Frobel, in 
imitation of Festalozzi, introduces the canvas for drawing ; first upon 
a squared slate, later upon a paper canvas, the child learning to trace 
straight lines from one square (or other given unit) up to five in length ; 
these lines are at first vertical, then horizontal, and afterwards oblique. 
They are studied in all combinations, in angles, in combined angles, 
and in closed figures. That is certainly a long and tedious way to reach 
an end that can be reached in a shorter and more interesting way by 
drawing forms of common use ; then artistic forms, as soon as the chil- 
dren have acquired some skill in drawing straight line.s.f 

We might also make some important objections, some hygienic 
remarks against the use of slates in the first drawing exercises ; but for 
largely attended and feebly endowed kindergartens, these objections 
will have to yield for a long time to economical considerations. 

The modeling work (towards the end of the oth year) will only be 
upon the ball and objects derived from it with slight modifications, such 
as the cherry, the apple, the nut, etc. Later the cylinder and its appli- 
cations, the flour-bag, sausages, carrots, etc ; it is only toward the end of 
the attendance at the kindergarten that they should attempt tools or 
images of organic objects. 

The paper cutting and pea-tcork we have already spoken of as occu- 
pations which can only be given to the older pupils, because in the 
paper-cutting a good deal of judgment is required in the use of the 
scissors, and the pea-work demands an already patiently acquired skill, 



•Let children be saved as long as possible from contemplating grotesque forms or 
caricatures. — TV. 
tMiss Moore's modification of Frobel's drawing scbool may be referred to here, — Tr. 



3iG FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF FKOEBEL'S SYSTEM. 

which can only be met with in children of quite advanced phjsical and 
moral development. But even for such pupils, Frobel's paper-cutting 
must be given up. We can only begin by cutting forms that have 
been drawn beforehand. In the pea-work we must limit ourselves in 
the kindergarten to certain common forms, and to the cube and its 
simplest applications. 

Although it is not our intention to describe everything in the kinder- 
garten and its incontestable means of development, we will discuss two 
things ; the observation of nature and the cultivation of speech. 

In order to observe nature, Frbbel puts the child into the garden of 
the establishment. There the child not onl^ receives an impression of 
the beauty and sublimity of nature which leads him to the idea of God 
the Creator, but he also strengthens himself in the exercise of duty by 
an attentive examination of plants and animals. 

The value Frobel attaches to the spoken or chanted word is the 
theme of innumerable passages in his works. He says of story telling : 
" To tell a story is to the mind of the child like a strengthening bath ; 
it is an exercise for the soul and for the judgment, a school of trial 
and examination for the appreciation of self and of personal feeling." 
Frobel looks upon the story especially as a means of culture for the 
intellect and the character. The culture of thought and speech is at- 
tached to all the plays and occupations. If we cannot approve of the 
instruction specially called inluilive in the kindergarten, we do not con- 
sider superfluous the conversations upon real subjects, whether models 
or images, in the interest of material and aesthetic education. 

If, for example, real objects or models of them are best for giving 
an exact idea of things, it does not follow that the representation of 
these objects by pictures has no educational value. We cannot always 
see things near enough, we cannot always be present at the scenes we 
wish to represent, and among these last, historical scenes or the situa- 
tions drawn from a story are particularly invisible. From this it may 
easily be seen what should be, according to our ideas, the images repre- 
sented in the kindergartens ; scenes from story or history, pictures of 
natural history or of human activity. Upon one and the same picture 
should be found only subjects of the same kind, or scenes which are 
intimately related. Consequently everything should be avoided of a 
foreign or distant kind, and especially everything that requires a 
degree of imagination and experience such as children cannot have 
acquired. Baby stories, little tales and poems are particularly suitable 
to develop character, speech and the religious sense. 

From all that has been said, it results that kindergartens must not 
be looked upon as schools, but as a preparation for schools. Every 
school study, every work which bears any resemblance to a trade, every- 
thing which might injure the normal development of mind and body, 
must be excluded. Everything is to be based upon the intellectual and 
physical education without the child being made to feel any constraint, 



FURTHER DE\Ti:LOPMENT OF FROEBEL'S SYSTEM. 347 

without his aspirations being checked by the order that neverthe- 
less is necessary ; he is to be led gradually into the habit of serious 
work, into perseverance with all work that has been begun, and into a 
taste for useful occupations. For this, the instructor must know accu- 
rately how to manage all the material and be able to prepare the chil- 
dren for school. We must listen, we ought to listen attentively to the 
contradictory opinions of teachers ; while some think the pupils from 
the kindergartens too light and frivolous and dissipated in mind, others 
complain because the kindergartens infringe too much upon the 
domain of the school, and thus are robbed of their peculiar charm. 
These claims are founded and these complaints justified only where the 
children have the misfortune of passing the age which precedes the 
school period under the direction of persons who have not understood 
their mission, or were insufficiently prepared for it. 

II. SHOULD KINDERGARTNERS HAVE A NORMAL TRAINING ? 

This leads us to treat of the second question ; have the teachers of 
kindergartens any need of a special normal training? and to this we 
reply without hesitation in the affirmative. If kindergartens are ex- 
pected to supply the place of the paternal home, or to complement its 
work when the numberless hardships of life, or the want in the mother 
of an intelligent understanding of her holy mission, or of the knowl- 
edge and means necessary for its performance make the home worth- 
less to the child, so much the more is it necessary that those who 
take the mother's place should not also be lacking in this intelligent 
understanding. The deepest feeling can never completely supply the 
want of intelligence, but in many cases the mother, full of true mater- 
nal love, will by instinct treat her children judiciously. But let us 
beware of thinking that feminine sensibility or tact alone can be suffi- 
cient for this task, any more than a certain practically acquired dexter- 
ity for bringing up and suitably occupying a large flock of strange 
children. If it is now undoubted that in the career of instruction 
especially, a special education besides natural gifts, is necessary, these 
conditions exist in an equal degree for the instructress of a kinder- 
garten, as well as for one who has to do with older children. Our ideas 
upon the formation of teachers for the kindergartens are chiefly the 
same as those which have served as a basis for the creation of the 
normal institutions in Austria. Our government should be credited 
with the great merit of having regulated by law the foundation of 
institutions for the education of the children who have not yet reached 
the school age, and also the formation of those who will be called upon 
to labor in such institutions. 

As natural gifts, we require of every kindergarten teacher a clear 
understanding of the life of childhood, and a consistent character which 
shall combine a certain seriousness, patience and amiability. Conse- 
quently, care must be taken not to receive very young girls who have 



348 FURTHEK DEVELOPMENT OF FROEBEL'S SYSTEM. 

hardly reached adult age and yet require oversight themselves, or per- 
sons already aged and soured by sad experiences. It is impossible to 
fix an age for the candidates for normal training ; but the i-egulation 
of the Austrian minister of public instruction requires that they shall 
have reached the age of seventeen years. 

They must also have an agreeable exterior, irreproachable morals, 
a musical ear and correct voice, the same conditions as are required for 
admission into other normal schools. In a normal course in Frbbel's 
method, the qualities specially necessary to work successfully in a 
kindergarten are a clear understanding of the nature of childhood, 
knowledge demanded for that end and skill and trustworthiness for the 
accomplishment of the duties of an instructress. The branches of 
teaching in the normal course in Austria are : 1, the pedagogy and 
theory of the kindergarten ; 2, the exercises practiced in those estab- 
lishmenls ; 3, instruction in the mother tongue and notions about 
common things ; 4, drawing with a free hand ; 5, the work of forms ; 
6, singing ; 7, gymnastics. 

This plan, drawn up by ministerial regulation, forms only one year 
of study and leaves much to be desired. We will make our observa- 
tions upon it based upon experience. 

The education of kindergartners is triple ; pedagogic, scientific and 
musical. 

The pedagogic education must be both theoretic and practica,l. 

The first embraces the principal precepts of general pedagogy, based 
upon anthropologic (physiologic and psychologic) principles, and special 
ideas besides of the theory of kindergartens. If we wish the kinder- 
gartner to pursue the physical and moral development of her pupils 
with a clear consciousness of what she is doing, she must learn the 
laws of that development, not in a scientific form, but in a popular 
form. Moreover, it is desirable that she should know the history of 
pedagogy from Comenius to the present epoch. She should know that 
Frbbel's system has proceeded out of the earlier pedagogic systems, 
and how it has so proceeded ; that its creation was only possible by the 
successive efforts of such men as Comenius, Rousseau, Basedow, Pesta- 
lozzi and Fichte. She will then be enabled to seize clearly the princi- 
ples of Frdbel, to understand the numerous adversaries the system 
has raised up, and in what the progress realized by those pedagogues 
consists. 

It is hardly necessary to add that together with the knowledge of 
Frobel's method, she must also acquire great practical skill to be a good 
kindergartner. As the plays and occupations of the method rest very 
much upon mathematics, it is indispensable that a kindergartner 
should become acquainted with the elements of geometry. By assidu- 
ous and well chosen reading, and by numerous exercises in the art of 
expressing her thoughts viva voce or in writing, the kindergartner 
should acquire a skill in the use of her mother tongue, which will make 



FUKTHER DEVELOPMENT OF FROEBEL'S SYSTEM. Bid 

her capable of developing and forming the faculty of speaking to her 
little pupils by means of conversation and story-telling. 

She should also have some notion of the natural sciences, particu- 
larly of natural history. The exact understanding of Frdbel's princi- 
ples, which recognized the laws of the individual and those of nature 
as identical, is impossible without the knowledge of these latter laws. 

An acquaintance with the principal animals and the most useful in- 
digenous plants would furnish the kindergartner with materials for 
conversations on subjects and pictures of natural history. 

-Without this knowledge she can never venture to give such lessons 
without preparation. How many times, without this knowledge, she 
may find herself unable to name an insect, a plant, a mineral, found 
by one or the other of her pupils, during their stay in the garden, or 
in a walk in the country ! The study of the natural sciences will 
elevate her general education, and in every situation of life be the 
source of pure and noble joys. 

A kindergartner must not neglect her musical education, at least to 
a certain degree. It is not enough that she has studied the melodies 
adapted to the movement plays, and that she knows how to sing them 
perfectly. She should be able to read an easy song at sight, with con- 
fidence and sure intonation. If she knows how to play a little upon 
the piano or violin the study of the kindergarten songs will be much 
facilitated. She will also gain in reputation and be able to ameliorate 
her position pecuniarily. 

The teaching of drawing in the normal course for kindergartners 
should not be limited to drawing in the net, but as the Austrian plan 
of study requires, it should comprise the free-hand drawing of figures, 
and an understanding of the wants of kindergartens in this respect. 

In gymnastics it is of special importance that the future kindergart- 
ner should learn to direct the movement plays with precision and to 
watch the carriage of her pupils when they sit down, rise up, or walk, 
in order that she may avoid everything that might be injurious to their 
growth or the normal development of their limbs. 

If we consider that besides this theoretic education which represents 
the minimum of what may be required of a good kindergartner, one 
recommends a certain practical skill as soon as she takes up her em- 
ployment, a skill which she can acquire only in the normal coiirse, the 
necessity will be clearly seen of extending the duration of her normal 
studies to two years. 

KINDERGARTNERS SHOULD PREPARE FOR SCHOOL. 

As one of the principal parts of the task of the kindergartens, we 
have indicated that which consists in the preparation of the children 
for the school. 

But if we wish that the efforts made in the kindergarten shall bear 
their full fruit, and that the end proposed shall be fully attained, the 
kindergarten must be included as an organic member of the education 



3j0 further development of froebel's system. 

and instruction protected by the government, and it must be put in 
relation with the primary schools in which its action will be continued. 

This demand is not new ; it is based especially upon the fact that the 
teaching in many cases would acquire a more intuitive form by means 
of the activity of the kindergartens, and that this activity would 
receive a new impulse by the adoption of the work of forms. 

It is extraordinary that the recognition of this fact has not pene- 
trated everywhere ; that in spite of the fact that ever since Comenius, 
all the educationists of any note, particularly the pietists and philan- 
thropists, Pestalozzi and Ficlite, find in practical work an important 
means of education, even in our times many voices among the instruct- 
ors and the partisans of Frbbel's method, have been raised against 
the introduction of works of form in the school. Many pedagogues 
who had come forward as defenders of Frbbel's method wished to 
trace a line of separation between the kindergartens and the school, 
and have thought it their duty to protest against the continuation 
of the work of the kindergarten in the primary school. We should 
be carried too far if we should enumerate all the advantages which 
would result in a very short time both for the primary school and 
the kindergarten if they could be put into complete relation with 
each other. We will only say, in a few words, that the development 
of the faculty of representation, the supreme end of the kindergarten, is 
only a mode of application and can be only that ; that notwithstanding 
this, the applications acquired lose their effect only too soon, and even 
lose all traces in the actual state of the relation between the two estab- 
lishments ; that the modern schobl Avill never completely fulfill its task 
as long as it will persevere in its traditional point of view, which is to 
impart empty knowledge and to fill the heads of the pupils with a fixed 
quantity of notions which the school alone can not make really valuable. 

The new pedagogy demands the harmonious development of the 
forces of man. There can be no question that if we furnish the true ali- 
ment indispensable to this necessity of creating and forming which 
shows itself in every healthy child, the occupations of Frbbel are the 
true means of attaining this end, even in schools; as we have already 
said, they can only be begun in the kindergarten, but they will find 
their continuation in the school. 

We will instance in the first place the laying of the little xticks. This 
exercise can serve in the school as auxiliary in the teaching of draw- 
ing, in the study of geometrical forms and in calculation. While in 
the elementary class of the primary school the child represents the out- 
line of things by the help of the little sticks, he very quickly makes use 
of the opportunity to fix the representation by drawing, and soon suc- 
ceeds in it after the drawing exercises in the net, wliich he has exe- 
cuted in the kindergarten ; for the position of the little sticks as a 
material line facilitates his perception of form. By different and 
often repeated representations, we may also in the simplest manner in- 



FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF FROEBEL'S SYSTEM. 351 

culcate upon the child the notion of vertical, horizontal, of the angle, 
the quadrilateral, the triangle, etc. In short, the little sticks which 
have served iii the kindergarten for the intuition of numbers, can serve 
in the lower class of the primary school as the most instructive count- 
ing implements, because the pupil has them in his hands. 

Folding can be conveniently used as an auxiliary means of teach- 
ing mathematics. If we look for a moment at the simple folding leaf, 
it shows us immediately lines, angles, figures of all kinds, on which 
depend the intuitions of form and size, from which we can show, 
according to the intelligence and degree of development of the child, 
the most simple geometric laws. The frequent folding of the primitive 
form of the paper and the continual repetitions of the proportions, 
prepare the children for the higher steps of geometric and matiie- 
matical demonstration, in such a manner that the rules and laws will 
present nothing strange and difficult to their apprehension. The fold- 
ing rightly used serves as an auxiliary to the teaching of drawing. 

The paper-cuUing, combined with pasting, may be divided into geo- 
metric cuttings, and the cutting of various forms. This last is sub- 
divided into special cuttings from given outlines, free cutting without 
preliminary drawing, and fancy cutting, that is, cutting from the 
child's own fancy, unaided. The cutting of forms is not only a good 
preparation for drawing for children from seven to eight years of age ; 
it has another real value, for if at that age drawing cannot be carried 
so far as to the representation of animals, this specialty becomes im- 
portant and even necessary in cutting. While cutting the forms of 
plants and animals, flowers and leaves, these are strongly impressed 
upon the memory of the children. 

Geometric cutting is easily distinguished from the cutting of draw- 
ings by the difference of character. This character no longer gives 
outlines of objects, but interrupted surfaces in which the parts of the 
figures are to have an exact relation to each other and to the whole. It 
follows that the understanding of geometric forms immediately awakens 
the sense of harmony and symmetry. The cut forms are then to be 
pasted upon the colored paper, regard being had to the exact adaptation 
of colors. In this manner our children will form groups of forms which 
will still give them pleasure when along time after they attend school. 

Embroidering, which in the kindergarten is an occupation for both boys 
and girls will continue to be such only for girls in the school for 
whom alone it can have any practical application ; in this sense it con- 
stitutes, in the exact perception of colors and their shades, an exercise 
of taste for the ornamentation of divers articles made by women. 

Embroidering has this advantage over cutting, that it occupies itself 
not only with mere outlines but with the grea,t lines that represent ob- 
jects. The principal features which designate the parts and members 
of the organized forms, are more vigorously salient than in the drawing, 
because they appear one after the other and thus claim special atten- 
tion, and also because they are detached in relief, and thus are clearer. 



352 FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF FROEBEL'S SYSTEM. 

The combination of li'tle sticks by peas, little bits of cork or little balls of 
clay or wax can be made as interesting as instructive in the school. 
With these materials, the children reproduce mathematical forms and 
the forms of crystallization which by their transparency are under- 
stood more clearly than in any other representation. Here the differ- 
ent axes of the mathematical solids allow themselves to be clearly ssen, 
while in any other way they are invisible. The mathematical solids 
may be used as patterns for drawing and for modeling in clay. Besides 
this, many common forms, like houses, churches, etc., sometimes in 
connection with folding, sometimes with cuttings in imitation of 
household utensils, or garden tools, constitute a very advantageous 
preliminary exercise for the acquisition of skill and technical dexterity. 

The clay modeling may be considered a preparatory study for the 
plastic arts, and offers the opportunity to bring out in all its juvenile 
brilliancy that sense of form which has already been cultivated in differ- 
ent ways in the kindergarten. Most people occupy themselves with 
the effects which may result from the transposition of forms. For all 
these an early education of the taste cannot but be advantageous. 
Certainly by so instructive an occupation, the natural disposition of 
some future artist may be increased to a shining light, for it is espe- 
cially by the free reproduction of isolated forms that we can judge 
whether the child possesses any such native tendency. The represen- 
tative domain of modeling is a very extensive one ; nature, art, indus- 
try, the family, everything furnishes subjects for modeling in clay, 
which may also be perfectly utilized for the reproduction of mathemati- 
cal forms. tBox making is particularly useful in reference to these 
last solids. In the beginning, the materials consist only of card-board 
which is easily cut and managed, and which changes by degi-ees with 
the help of a very liquid paste. The art may be begun by making 
little boxes for seeds, etc. Later, larger boxes may be made for 
keeping caterpillars or for the preservation of their cocoons ; then may 
follow portfolios for collecting and preserving plants. All these should 
be covered with colored paper, or narrow bauds of different colored 
papers should be pasted on the edges. 

As a consequence of all that has been touched upon here, upon the 
principle of concentration, all the works that have been designated as 
suitable for the primary school must be put into relation with the other 
branches of instruction and be introduced as auxiliary to these. In 
this way that objection will fall to the ground which is so often re- 
peated, namely, that the modern school embraces too many topics for 
it to be possible to add any new branches, for the instruction propeily 
so called, gains in intuition and practical value what it may lose in time 
by the introduction of these new branches. 

[Mr. Fischer closes with the remark, that the occupations proposed 
for the school do not necessitate special place and tools, and are adapted 
to girls as well as boys. He also attaches great value to school-gardens.] 



FURTHER DEVELOPMENT AND ADAPTATION 

OF FROBEL'S SYSTEM. 

BY M. JULES GUILLIAUME. 

QUESTIONS BEFORE INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS.* 
What are tlie developments and adaptations of which Frobel's system is sus- 
ceptible ? 

I8 it suitable to apply Frobel's principles to Primary School Teaching, and by what 
means can it be done ? 

The questions thus formulated by the International Congress of 
Education are of the highest importance. It cannot be concealed that 
there is not only disparity, but antagonism, between the kindergarten 
and the school : in the one we see regulated liberty ; the teacher meets 
the curiosity of the child, provokes its questions, urges it to incessant 
activity and motion, and play: in the other, constraint dominates; 
silence and perfect quiet are the rule ; the child has not the right to 
make itself heard ; the monotony of interminable lessons is scarcely 
allowed to be broken by even automatic exercises (rise, sit down, clap 
your hands, etc.). The result is that the wide-awake, curious pupils, 
— the best pupils who are from the kindergartens, — are homeless in the 
school where they with difficulty escape the detentions, double tasks and 
other punishments calculated to make them feel that work is a punish- 
ment imposed upon men since the remotest antiquity ; the obtuse and 
sleepy scholars, on the contrary, who need to be excited by stimulants, 
are generally considered the good pupils, made examples for their wis- 
dom and docility, and crowned with green laurels to the sound of trom- 
bones. In all the countries where Frobel's method has been planted, 
the children who have been subject to it are marked as the most intel- 
ligent, but at the same time the most refractory to the discipline of the 
school. The antagonism duly verified, it remains to examine how far 
it is in the nature of things, and to investigate whether Frobel's 
method, which is still a blind alley, can become a path of communica- 
tion to conduct the child to its destination. First we must take account 
of the thought of its inventor and inquire if he did not perceive that 
there was a solution of continuity between his creation and that of his 
forerunners, and if he has not done something to effect a transition 
between the two stages of elementary instruction. 

I. THE IDEA OF THE KINDERGARTEN UNIVERSAL. 

The name of Frobel is inseparably connected with the organization 
of kindergartens. The education of early childhood is, in general 
opinion, the special, unique and exclusive work of Frobel, the mark of 
his individuality. Until his time it had been thought that this stage 

* Congres International del' Enseignement, Bruxelles, 1880, Rapports Priliminaires, 
xlvi+304+98+94+112+112+216=982. Translated by Mrs. Horace Mann. 

23 353 



354 FURTKER DEVELOPMENT AND ADAPTATION. 

of education belonged to the mother who did the best she could, or to 
the nurses who had learned by milking cows how to educate children ! 
Frobel, starting from the principle recognized by other pedagogues, 
who came before him, that the education of man begins at the moment 
of his birth, had the original idea of subjecting him to a rational 
method, instead of abandoning him to chance. But after the seventh 
year he occupies himself no longer with the child ; he delivers him 
bound hand and foot to the school, leaving to the latter the care of re- 
placing the maternal milk by a more substantial nourishment. Such 
is nearly the idea of those people who take the kindergartens for 
nursery schools where children are instructed by mere play. 
Frohel's Education of Man. 
Is it necessary to say that nothing is more false than this conception ? 
Before he became the creator of kindergartens, Frobel was and always 
remained the author of the Education of Man, his Didactica Magna, 
unfortunately unfinished, which embraced, like those of Comenius and 
J, J. Rousseau, the whole period of the growth and development of 
the human being, from his cradle till after he leaves the university. 
The first volume, the only one published, leads him till beyond the first 
childhood. Far from admitting that there are gaps between the periods 
designated by the names of nursling and child, boy or girl, youug man 
or girl, man and woman, old man and matron, Frobel proclaims on 
every page the necessity of the unification of education in order to 
arrive at the unification of life: "All the operations of the mind," 
he says in the beginning, " having for their condition as phenomena in 
the end, a chronological series, a consecutiveness, a succession, it is 
absolutely necessary and inevitable that if man has neglected, at any 
epoch, however near or distant, to produce his strength, to raise it to 
the condition of work, or at least to display it in view of a work or an 
action, he will one day be sensible of some imperfection growing out of 
this neglect ; he will not be what he might have been if he had faith- 
fully wrought out his vocation by utilizing his forces." 

The mother-idea of the book is the organization of a vast scheme of 
education in which all sorts of knowledge, instead of being scattered 
and parceled out, are presented to the child serially, and co-ordinated, 
then brought back to a higher principle, unity. Long before Frobel, 
his precursor Comenius had already traced out the plan of an institu- 
tion in which each stage of instruction should form a whole which 
should be reproduced in each of the following stages; he directly 
offered to the pupils an encyclopedia of what they had to learn, which 
was to be developed more and more : " Let all knowledge," he said, 
" be given first in a broad and coarse sketch, without isolating the dif- 
ferent parts. Every language, every art is to be taught first from its 
own most simple rudiments, then more completely by rules and exam- 
ples, and at last systematically with the addition of anomalies, etc." 
Frobel proceeds equally by way of stratification. As he never ceases 



FURTHER DEVELOPMENT AND ADAPTATION. 355 

to repeat, his principles as well as his educational processes apply 
not only to the kindergartens but to every subsequent stage of the 
instruction ; not only to youth, but to manhood; and it is with reason 
that one of his disciples* required as a primary and essential condition 
of the playthings of the child, that they should be and should remain 
in their detail and in their totality, his elements of education in all 
the stages of his development, or, in other words, that the pupil should 
constantly discover new properties in them, according to his age and 
his faculties. 

If this is true, if the materials of the kindergarten are sufficient for 
the school also, the questions in the programme of the Congress are 
very nearly answered ; for it is no longer the question to seek, by 
means of mutual concessions, compromises and half-measures, for the 
means of reconciling two contrary things ; and, in fact, it would be 
of no use to say, for example, that the school will tolerate a part of the 
liberty which reigns in the kindergarten, if we did not point out at the 
same time how that could be put in practice without order having to 
suffer for it ; nor to take the love of work as the sole motive power 
without also having the means of making the work interesting. It is 
clear that the adaptation of Frobel's principles cannot be made except 
with the views and means which he has himself indicated. From the 
moment that he is no longer looked upon merely as the founder of kin- 
dergartens, but as the creator of a system of education of all degrees, 
the question is only to assure one's self that the expedients proposed 
by him are as suitable for the school as for the kindergarten ; every- 
thing is reduced consequently to a simple verification based upon an 
exact acquaintance with his plays and occupations. 

In the Education of Man, Frdbel, although still glued to the formulas 
of Pestalozzi, gives us the general plan of his own conception ; after- 
ward, and to the very end of his life, it is to the Education of Man 
that he refers, " although," he says, " for a quarter of a century and 
more that it has been written and published, it has been rounded out 
and simplified in different ways in its methodology." It is at this 
fountain that we must seek for his own exposition of the generation of 
forms of which the different plays of the kindergarten are only the 
applications. 

II. DEVELOPMENT OF FORCE IN NATURE. 

Force appears to be the first principle of all things, and of every 
manifestation in nature ; it is force which effects the separation of 
objects and thus produces their individuality. 

Every individuality, all diversity claims, besides force, a second 
necessary condition of form, which is substance. 

Matter and force constitute an undivided unity ; one does not exist 
without the other ; properly speaking, one cannot be conceived without 
the other. 



*A. KShler, Kindergarten und Elementar-Klasse, 1861, no. 4. 



356 FURTHER DEVELOPMENT A27D ADAPTATION. 

The principle of the transformation of matter, even in its least par- 
ticles, is the originally spherical effort of imminent force, which tends 
to radiate spontaneously and equally from all parts. "\^Tien force de- 
velops itself freely in all directions, the material manifestation in space, 
which is the result, is the sphere. It is thus that the spherical form is 
the first and the last form of nature, that of the cell, and that of the 
great celestial bodies, that of water and of all liquids, that of air and 
of all gaseous forms. It appears as the prototype, the unity of all 
physical forms, diverse and irreconcilable as they may seem. It con- 
tains them all, under the relation of their essence, of their conditions 
and of their law. No point, no line, no surface predominates in it, 
and yet it contains all the points, lines and surfaces of other bodies. 

The action of force in different directions, and the relations of these 
directions to each other, have for their immediate and necessary conse- 
quence, the heterogeneous and the symmetrical division of matter ; it is 
for each particular case the essential principle of every definite form 
and figure. 

Force, starting from a center, and diverging in straight lines, acts 
necessarily in two opposite directions in the same line. The prepon- 
derance of three double directions, which cross at right angles and 
remain in perfect equilibrium, gives birth to the cube, each of whose 
eight angles shows the equivalence and rectangular direction of three 
double directions which meet in the interior, while the twelve edges 
(3 times 4) indicate four times each of the same directions, whose six 
faces present the six extremities at their center. 

In this, the most elementary form of crystallization, the unity of the 
sphere is replaced by isolated surfaces, definite points or angles, distinct 
lines or edges. The points, in their turn, seek to develop into lines 
and surfaces, the lines again seek to condense themselves into points, 
or to extend themselves into surfaces, the surfaces to transform them- 
selves into lines and points ; the three double preponderating directions 
already imagined in the midst of the six cubic faces endeavor to mani- 
fest themselves externally by producing themselves as edges. The 
result is a solid, the regular octohedron, which counts as many surfaces 
as the cube has angles, as many angles as the cube has sides, and the 
same number of edges as the cube, but in intermediate directions. 

Each of the three double fundamental directions of force produces 
itself in the cube by three couples of sides or faces ; in the octohedron 
by three couples of angles or points. There must necessarily exist a 
solid in which the same directions wiU be represented externally by 
three couples of edges or lines ; the regular tetrahedron presents us, 
indeed, in its edges, the six extremities of its three double directions. 

The spherical action of force manifests itself thus in three bodies 
terminated by straight lines and plane surfaces : 

The cube, whose three couples of faces f represent the three coup- 

The octohedron, whose three couples of angles -1 les of equivalent and 
The tetrahedron, whose three couples of edges [ fundamental directions. 



FURTHER DEVELOPMENT AND ADAPTATION. 357 

In each of these three bodies, the axis coincides with one of the 
three principal directions and is confounded witli it. The cube rests 
in a stable manner on one of its faces ; the octohedron is supported 
upon a summit, the tetrahedron upon an edge, and thereby the two 
last mentioned bodies tend to fall upon one of their sides. Their equi- 
librium upon a larger base brings about a displacement of the axis, 
which then no longer coincides with one of the three principal direc- 
tions, but cuts them all three at equal angles. In this new position the 
elements grouped before by twos or by fours, appear to be grouped 
three to three, (3 and 3 sides, 3 and 3 edges, 3 and 3 summits). The 
six faces of the cube no longer are seen as squares, but as lozenges. 
The principal form of this system is the rhombohedron, whose deriva- 
tives, in their turn, constitute several definite series determined by a 
principal form intimately allied to the primitive form. 

The two systems represented by the cube and the rhombohedron 
offer differences of length between the three fundamental directions ; 
or rather the direction which coincides with the axis is alone greater 
or smaller than the two others, or the principal directions are all three 
unequal among themselves. Such is the origin of the six crystalline 
types generally admitted by mineralogists. 

All these forms, of which the sphere is the creative unity, present 
this peculiarity, that their members are multiples of two or multiples 
of three, to the exclusion of the numbers five and seven, that is to 
say, of combinations of the numbers two or four with the number 
three, and the forms which result from them, which are only produced 
in the condition of disordered or accidental forms. 

It is otherwise in the organic world, in which the spherical form be- 
comes predominant ; life there is subordinated to matter (vegetables), 
or matter is subordinated to vital activity (animals). Vegetables still 
obey the numerical relations of solids ; plants are for the most part in 
limbs of 2 and 2, or 3 and 3 ; where the number 5 appears, it is in 
consequence either of a separation, a division of the fundamental 
directions of the parts limbed by 4 or by 2 X 2 (2-}-2 + l^, or by a 
contraction of the fundamental directions in the plants limbed by 3 
and 3. 

The number 5, the combination of the numbers 2 and 3, characterizes 
the force which has risen to life and movement ; it is the essential 
attribute of the hand, the principal limb of man, his principal instru- 
ment in the employment of his creative faculties. 

This legality of nature, this manifestation of unity in diversity, 
Frdbel considers not only to be found in forms, he discovers it in 
sounds, in colors, in language, as well as in forces and substances. 

It is upon this vast synthesis that he builds his whole system of edu- 
cation, and he demands that the child shall be accustomed early to 
contemplate nature as a whole, developing of itself in each point; 
for without the intuition and cognizance of unity in the action of 



358 FUETHEE DEVELOPMENT AND ADAPTATION. 

nature and of the diversity which is derived from it, there exists no 
true science. 

III. DEVELOPMENT OF FORCE DEMONSTRATED. 

The gifts of Frobel to the child are nothing but the working out of 
his theory. After having presented him with the ball in his first gift, 
as the primitive form from whence issue all the others, he offers him 
the cube in the second gift, the primitive form of crystalline action ; 
the two contrasts are connected by the cylinder, which participates of 
both.* 

Just as the swelling of the soap-bubble, and the fall of a stone in the 
water, furnish the child with a clear intuition of the production of the 
sphere and the circle by the symmetrical radiation of force, so the 
perforation of the cube and the introduction of a little rod through 
two opposite surfaces, edges and summits, show him from the first the 
displacement of the axes and their change of direction. Another phe- 
nomenon not less important, presents itself, when the cube, resting by 
turns upon one face', one edge, or one angle, is suspended to a double 
cord or a thread one of whose extremities passes through one of the eye- 
lets, and whose two halves are thus twisted together ; the whirling of 
the cube in a different direction from the twisting impresses the child 
with a rotary motion, which is made more and more rapid by pulling 
the two ends of the cord so as to remove them from each other ; in con- 
sequence of the persistence of the impression upon the retina the edges 
are thus softened and effaced, the angles become pointless and rounded. 



*It is not without importance for the history of the development of Frobel's ideas 
to remark that originally the second gift comprised only the ball and the cube. The 
first exposition which Frobel made of it in the Sonntagsblatt of 1838, Nos. 8 — 12, 
makes no mention of the cylinder as an intermediate form. Does this mean, as his 
biographer Hanschmann supposes, that the fundamental law of the connection of 
contrasts, upon which Frobel established his whole system of education, is not found 
formally expressed in any of his writings antecedent to the year 1840? This is far 
from the fact; from 1826 we see it perfectly formulated in the Edtication of Man in 
these terms : "It is well to call the attention of the pupils immediately to one great 
law, which dominates in nature and thought, namely : that between two things or 
two ideas relatively different there always exists a third which unites the two others 
in itself, and is found between them with a certain equilibrium." And in his first 
description of the second gift, in 1838, Frobel already gives himself to the search for 
an intermediary between the ball and the cube; he thinks he discovers it in a ball 
somewhat elastic, which can affect the form of the cube and be easily restored to the 
form of the ball. 

Later, in his " Complete Exposition of the Material of Occupation in the Kinder- 
garten," Frobel does not keep to a single intermediary between the ball and the 
cube; he introduces a second, the cone. "As the cylinder," he says, " excludes the 
intuition of corners and the fixed rotation upon one point, it calls for and commands 
in its turn, a body intermediary between the three others, that is to say, uniting the 
properties of the three; corners (points), edges (lines), sides (surfaces), plane as well 
as curved; it is the revolving cone." In this new conception, the second gift then 
comprised, beside the cube, the three roiind bodies, technically speaking. The cone 
is, indeed, the intermediary between the sphere and the cube for the series of pyra- 
mids, as the cylinder with the two parallel faces is the intermediary for the series of 
prisms. 



FURTHER DEVELOPIMENT AND ADAPTATION. 359 

The child discovers the relation that exists between the prism and the 
cylinder, the pyramid and the cone, or in a more general manner, be- 
tween the many-sided and the round bodies. 

Frobel justly considers it very essential thus to give the child, from 
its earliest age, a norm to which he can attach the other objects which 
circumstances will present to him in too great a quantity to be all 
studied and analyzed in detail. When in the midst of typical and 
fundamental intuitions or representations, he has understood the ball 
and the cube, he possesses a scale for the appreciation of all other 
bodies, and what is infinitely more precious in view of his education, 
he discovers how diversity, plurality and totality result from unity, 
and how, after having issued from it, they return to it and reduce 
themselves to it. The symbolism of Frobel, the most fruitful of his 
innovations in the theoretical domain of pedagogy, has especially for its 
object to teach the child early to consider a single thing under a great 
many points of view, several things under a single relation, and to dis- 
cover what there is common in different individuals, to discern what is 
essential from what is accidental, what is permanent from what is 
variable. 

" When the child," says Frobel, " considers these three bodies under 
their different aspects, what have you shown him and taught him? The 
intermediary cylinder furnishes us the answer : 

" What is round would unite with what is straight, what is straight 
with what is round ; from this reciprocal effort proceeds the union of the 
ball and the cube, the cylinder. 

" Thus : the points seek to become lines and surfaces, the surfaces 
to become lines and points ; in shoi't, each endeavors to form and pro- 
duce all the rest, everything which is another. 

" From the law, apparently external, of contrasts and their intermedi- 
ary, we in this way see result the internally organic and living law of 
transformation, of development." 

The second gift thus constituted, forms the pivot of the materials of 
occupation proposed by Frobel ; the other gifts and plays are only deriv- 
atives of this gift with the parallel translation of bodies into surfaces, 
lines and points, by the aid of tablets, folding, box -making and cut- 
ting, — weaving, little sticks, rings, thread, laths, interlacing, drawing, 
■ — ^pricking, etc. 

The following gifts present us, indeed, with simple divisions of primi- 
tive bodies ; Frobel indicates them in the following manner : 
in dice or cubes, 3d, 5th, 7th gifts,* 



Divisions of the cube, i . . , • i ^.u ^^u o^u -rt * 
' ' mto bricks, 4th, 6th, 8th gifts.* 

*The 7tli gift is derived necessarily from the 5th ; the cube appears in that to be 
divided three times each way, either in 4 times 4 times 4 or 64 dice, some of which are 
divided into equal parts with slanting surfaces 14, %, M, 1-6, whose arrangement in 
relation to a common center permits the representation of the principal regular 
polyhedrons, the octohedron and the dodecahedron, as contained in the interior of the 
cube and developing themselves from that. This game is very important as showing 



360 



FURTHER DEVELOPMENT AND ADAPTATION. 



Divisions of the sphere, 



Divisions of the cylinder, J 



r 1. Parallel to the periphery (or curved sur- 
face) either in half balls or in balls one 
inside the other ; 

Parallel to a great circle, that is in zones ; 

Through three great circles cutting at 
right angles, or in eight equal spherical 
triangles. 
- 1. Parallel to the cylindrical surface, con- 
sequently into cylinders of different 
sizes ; 

2. Parallel to the base of the cylinder, or 
into equal zones ; 

3. Through the two planes, cutting at right 
angles ; 

4. Into circles or rings of No. 1. 

1. Parallel to the curved surface ; (or small 
cones) ; 

2. Parallel to the base, in zones ; 

3. Through the two planes which cut at 
right angles in the axis ; 

4. Into conic sections. 

The child thus learns the a 6 c of things, which Pestalozzi was seek- 
ing all his life, and which it was reserved for Frbbel to discover. He 
traces the march of nature ; the divisions of the cube initiate him into 
the forms of the mineral kingdom ; those of round bodies introduce him 
fully into the vegetable world. The concentric divisions of the cylinder 
give him a presentiment and glimpse of the law which presides over the 
growth of the tree as plainly as the divisions of the cube enabled him 
to discover the different systems of crystals ; from the pith to the 
epidermis the force develops, following the direction of the axes ; every 
year adds a new zone more or less thick ; the roots radiate as they 
plunge into the earth, the trunk radiates as it rises toward the sky, the 
branches ramify in their turn. Everywhere the same spherical action 
of force shows itself. 



Divisions of the cone, 



IV. PRESENT PRACTICE DOES NOT REALIZE THE THEORY. 

The practice of the kindergartens is still far from realizing the con- 
ception of Frobel ; in general it has kept to the first six gifts and their 
dependencies. The round bodies of which glimpses are attained by the 
rotation of the cube attached to a double cord, and in a still more 
marked manner by the aspect of the cylinder in the condition of an 
independent body, are immediately abandoned ; they are no longer met 
in the building plays which are limited to some of the divisions 

how the external form of these bodies is determined by their center. " By the side 
of the 7th gift is presented the 8th, which bears the same relation to the 7th that the 
6th does to the 6th, and that the 4th does to the 3d." (Frobel, Complete Exposition of 
the material of occupation in the kindergarten.) 



FURTHER DEVELOPMENT A]ND ADAPTATION. 361 

and sub-divisions of the cube at rest (3d, 4th, 5th and 6th gifts). All 
these divisions affect the prismatic form to the exclusion of the pyra- 
midal series, explicitly pointed out by Frobel in his description of the 
7th gift, and probably comprised in his thought for the constitution of 
the 8th gift. The only elements which result are prisms whose surfaces 
offer us only the square, the rectangular parallelogi-am, and the isosceles 
right angled triangle. But when we pass from the bodies to the sur- 
faces represented by the tablets, the material of the plays in use presents 
us, besides, with the equilateral triangle, which is evidently one of the 
faces of the octohedron constructed by means of the 7th gift, and the 
scalene triangle which has its origin in the diagonal division of the 
brick of the 4th gift, a new element which Frobel, according to all ap- 
pearances, introduced into the 8th gift. 

As to the forms terminated by curved lines, they exist in a permanent 
manner neither in bodies nof in surfaces. They only appear in the 
play of the rings published by IMadame Frobel as a complement to the 
little sticks, in Frobel's school of drawing, and in the cutting. It is nec- 
essary then to go as far as the line to meet with forffes which, in Frobel's 
idea, were to exist equally as bodies and consequently as surfaces. 

The elimination of a whole series of bodies and the intrusion of 
surfaces which are attached to no solid, are not simple questions of 
more or less ; they are actually breaches into the system imagined by 
Frobel. The occupations of the kindergarten form in their totality 
and in their details, a chain which starts from the sphere and returns 
to it by three different routes ; the hexahedron passing through the sur- 
faces, the octohedron passing through the angles, and the rhombo- 
dodecahedron passing through the edges. Suppress one or the other of 
these bodies, and the child no longer comprehends the origin of the 
cube, its relations with the ball, or the relations of the different solids to 
each other. Suppress the intermediary forms, (the cubo-octohedric 
and the cubo-dodecahedric) he no longer seizes the relations between the 
cube and its derivatives. It is then an important matter to fill up all 
the gaps which still exist in practice. The creation of the polyhedrons 
•whose principal axes are rectangular and equal, their opaque representa- 
tion, by means of clay or other ductile substances, and their transpar- 
ent representation by means of the little sticks connected by peas, and 
comparison of each of them with the cubes and the other bodies termi- 
nate the exercises of the first stage. The child has seen diversity pro- 
ceed out of unity, the invisible from the visible, the exterior from the 
interior ; he knows that the same form may exist under different vol- 
umes, the same dimension may be invested with different aspects ; the 
laws of size and form (mathematics) have been revealed to him by the 
doing, by simple transformations, without any other reflexion, without 
the least word of explanation. He then may leave the kindergarten ; 
he is on the threshold of the intermediate school. 

What edifice is to rise upon these foundations ? Have we here, have 



362 FURTHER DEVELOPMENT AND ADAPTATION. 

we at least, as for the kindergarten, a plan traced by a master hand ? 
or as we often hear it said, has Frobel left only vague indications upon 
what is now called primary instruction, and what should more exactly 
be called the second stage of instruction ? * 

The Education of Man has already answered this question. Frobel 
in his pressing haste, set himself particularly to dig the foundation for 
his work. But it is easy to demonstrate that in order to erect it at 
least up to the first stage, he bequeathed to us not only the plan, but 
most of the materials. 

V. frobel's last thought. 

Besides the Education of Man, we possess in effect the last will and 
testament of Frobel, the letter which he wrote a month before his 
death to one of his pupils, Emma Bothmann. One might say that at 
the moment of setting out for that assembly at Gotha where hi8 
method was to be consecrated by the acclamations of the German in- 
structors, the "juvenile old man " had a presentiment of his near end 
and wished to leave to the world his last wishes and instructions. He 
had organized the kindergartens and could now say, Exigi monumentum. 
The question now was to solder it to the school proper, " the full 
school." That is what is perfectly done in that letter, dated from 
Marienthal, May 25, 1852. Frobel traces in that very exactly the line 
of demarcation between the first two stages of instruction : " In the 
kindergarten, the question is only of intuition, of conception, of doing, 
of the exact designation of a small number of objects by the appropri- 
ate word, but not yet by recognition and cognizance so to speak, de- 
tached from the object. The object and the cognizance, the intuition 
and the word are still under many relations, an intimate unity like 
that of soul and body in man. This stage of education is, then, to be 
limited in a very rigorous manner, by the kindergartners. It entirely 
excludes pure abstract cognizance, independent thought, which it is to 
be the object of the intermediate school to prepare for." 

There is nothing arbitrary in this recommendation and programme. 
Nor do they result from a preconceived system, but on the contrary 
from a very exact and attentive observation of child-nature, and the 
physiological laws of the development of the human being. It is be- 
tween the sixth and seventh year that the preponderance of the brain 
over the spinal marrow is established for good ; before that time the 
cerebral mass is not only smaller but softer and less deeply furrowed 
in its convolutions. It is generally towards the end of the seventh 
year that the child begins to analyze and to elaborate the impressions 
he has received before, and which hitherto he had confined himself to 



*The division establislied by Frobel was: 

1. Kindergarten. 

2. Intermediate class or school. 

3. Scbool of instruction and reasoning. 

4. School of vocation and life ; professional school. 



FURTHER DEVELOPMENT AND ADAPTATION. 363 

accumulating ; his superficial questions take a more reflective character ; 
he now manifests his inclination for more serious occupations, and his 
desire to learn, to acquire information, except indeed when a premature 
constraint has extinguished and stifled in him all curiosity ; for nature 
avenges herself at every age for the violence that is done to her. The 
beginning of the eighth year, the critical epoch of the second dentition, 
marks, among well constituted children, the aptitude to receive instruc- 
tion, properly so called, in as definite a manner as the swelling of the 
breast and other symptoms announce later the approach of puberty. 
There is a solstitial point of physical and intellectual development that 
ought to be taken into consideration for fixing the school age, although 
in reality there no more exists an age for school than a stature for 
school ; the moment of the passage from the kindergarten into the 
intermediate class or into the lower section of the primary school 
depends upon the preparation which each child has received, just as 
the change from one class to another in the school is regulated neither 
by the age nor the stature of the pupils, but by their degree of maturity. 
Difference between Kindergarten and School. 
Frobel thus characterizes the difference between the two stages of 
elementary teaching : " In the kindergarten the essential thing is the 
child, his nature, his growth, his development, his education. In the 
school it is the opposite ; the essential thing is the object, its nature^ 
the knowledge, intuition and understanding of its properties and its 
relations, its designation, etc. ; the education that results from it is the 
accessory, the accidental ; the principal thing is the comprehension of 
the object by the thought, the internal representation, the stripping 
off of the body, the abstraction. The intermediate school thus forms 
the transition between the real, sensuous intuition and the abstract 
conception. ". The key of the arch of the occupations of the kinder- 
garten is the transformation of material, and therefore the cognizance 
of the relations between the different solid (crystalline) forms, their 
derivation and the connection of each of them with the initial unity. 
The kindergarten occupies itself but little with drawing, because the 
fingers are still too weak ; the place of it is supplied on one side by the 
little sticks, and on the other by that favorite occupation of little 
children, which consists in making " rounds " upon the slate, and which 
may be perfected to the execution of simple leaves and flowers. Add 
to that the introduction into life, at first by the movement plays, and 
then by the cultivation of little garden beds, and you will have the kin- 
dergarten in all its extent. " You see," he adds, " upon what basis and 
with what amount of living germs the child passes from the kinder- 
garten into the intermediate school. The preparatory direction fails 
him at no point ; the impulse has been given for all ulterior progress. 
All that asks only to be developed from the unconscious to the conscious, 
and it is the task of the preparatory school of which the kindergarten 
is the first stage. ' 



364 FURTHER DEVELOPMENT AND ADAPTATION. 

" What path does the intermediate school follow ? It attaches itself 
very intimately to the acts, to the phenomena and to the intuitions of 
the kindergarten ; but it gives to the observation of each individual a 
general significance, an intellectual character, and a form of thought ; 
for example : ' This way, that way, goes my ball ; up, down, forward, 
back (intuition of the kindergarten). I can imagine everywhere in 
space, three lines, three directions, which cut each other at right angles, 
in a point (conception of the intermediate school). A whole has two 
halves ; two halves make a whole (intuition of the kindergarten). I 
can divide a whole into two equal parts and join these two halves to 
make the whole again (intellectual and general conception of the inter- 
mediate school).' " 

Then again, the child playing with the parallel tablets in the 5th 

gift has had more than one opportunity to convince himself that if he 

places them in a square against each of the equal sides of the isosceles 

triangle, he uses as many tablets as he would need to make a square 

upon the third side. He has repeated the same experiment with the 

rectangular scalene triangles ; the school will only have to resume these 

impressions and to generalize them in order to deduce the theorem of 

Pythagoras. 

Exercises in Language. 

The designation of the object by the word and by the sign, and 
notably writing, with reading for a corollary, belong evidently to the 
same phase of the child's development.* In the Education of Man 
already Frdbel assigned to the exercises of language the study of the 
word itself, entirely separated from the object it expresses, and treated 
speech as a substance. He indicated by 'that the path to follow in 
instruction, and traced the outlines of his subsequent pamphlet : 
" How Lina learns to write and I'ead," that is to say, the decomposition 
of words into syllables, the dismemberment of the syllables and the 
analysis of the parts that compose them (vowels and consonants), and 
in the last place their graphic representation by the means of conven- 

*In his monograph : " Hotv Lina learns to write and read " (and not to read and 
•write), Frobel fixes in a precise manner the age which is suited to learning to read ; 
he puts this occupation in the last year of the kindergarten. He supposes that Lina 
has attained the age of six years, and that having observed the joy of her father at 
receiving a letter, and his eagerness to answer it, she has conceived the most intense 
desire to learn to write. But it must not be lost sight of that the little girl had been 
educated without suspecting it, in a perfectly normal manner, or as Frobel expresses 
himself in an all-sided unity of life ; before thinking of writing a letter she had 
learned to execute a multitude of things with the most simple playthings, to build 
beautifully with the cube and its derivatives ; to make pretty designs with tablets of 
different forms and colors ; as well as with the little sticks, etc. Lina then was a 
precbciouB child, and the age at which she begins to instruct herself cannot be taken 
for a rule, when the question is of children who have passed months in knitting a 
garter very badly, and years in making a stocking which a machine does infinitely 
better in a few minutes. Such children become adults without going out of leading 
strings. Frobel attributes, in a great part, the imperfection of our schools and our 
teaching to our instructing our children without their feeling the want of it, and 
even after having extinguished that want in them. 



FURTHER DEVELOPMENT AND ADAPTATION. 365 

tional signs. " When the scholar shall be familiarized with the visible 
manifestation of every understood word, enunciated or simply formu- 
lated in the thought, we will seek a great choice of expressions which 
she will write, or indeed, if she desires it, she will be allowed to write 
words or little phrases herself. The correction is made by the pupil 
under the direction of the instructor. This method of teaching 
naturally leads to the knowledge of orthography, which is confounded 
with that of writing ; she thus spares the pupil that dry study, so long 
and difficult when it is presented to her in an isolated form. She 
already knows how to read, according to the first notion which ia 
attached to that word, and while formerly she only spelled with great 
effort at the end of a year of study, she now learns to read without 
fatigue or trouble, after only a few days' application." 

Number. 

The process used for the word applies equally to number ; for the 
method is a key which opens all doors ; number is treated according to 
its constituent elements, decomposed and recomposed, analyzed into its 
parts (equal — unequal, binary series and ternary series), and finally 
represented by the figure, distinct from the number itself. Here again 
the child arrives without difficulty at numeration and ciphering. 

The tracing of the signs representative of speech and number has for 
its first condition the study of drawing ; by means of the stereotyped 
netted paper, the child is enabled to reproduce all the forms he has had 
a glimpse of before, by reducing them to combinations of lines the 
length of from 1 to 5 squares of the net. The instruction does not go 
beyond that for the moment, because all the subsequent varieties of 
number are already given or at least indicated by the number 5.* 

Form and Dimension. 
For want of time and space, Frbbel limits himself to sending his 
pupil to the Education of Man for what touches upon language and 
number ; and for what regards form and dimension, to the exposition 
and lithographs of the 5th gift and to the forms of knowledge made 
•with different triangles, " which are with the works in wood the most 
important means of connection and transition between the kindergar- 
ten and the school, while passing through the intermediate class." He 
advises him to develop what the kindergarten has given him, to set out 

*The impossibility of finding the exact relation of the diagonal to the side of the 
square led Frobel to adopt for the practice of drawing a sort of compromise, analo- 
gous to that which the musicians use, in order, by a toleration of the ear, to put their 
gamut in unison with that of the physicists; the side of the square being 5, he takes the 
very ap)proximative ratio 7 as the length of the diagonal. By this process, as simple as 
it is ingenious, the child, after having drawn the square and the isosceles right angled 
triangle, which serve as types to the binary series of the 5th gift, translates them 
■without the assistance of the compass, into circles and semi-circles. As soon as this 
expedient has become familiar, he feels no difiiculty in constructing the hexagon and 
the equilateral triangle, principles of the ternary series of the 6th gift, any more 
than he does the ellipse, a curvilinear translation of the right angled parallelogram, 
■which belong to the same series. 



366 FURTHER DEVELOPMENT AND ADAPTATION. 

from the cube to decompose it into its isolated parts by rising to gen- 
eral intuitions and to descend thus from the cube to the square tablets 
and the surfaces, from the edges to the lines and the little sticks. " You 
may," he said, "pursue the study of numbers, setting out from the 
knowledge of isolated numbers and their differences, up to the teach- 
ing of relations and proportions, from the stage of intuition up to that 
of intellectual conception." The same material is thus taken up again 
as a sub- work and treated in a different point of view.* 
Material for the Intermediate Class. 

Frobel, however, does not restrict his materials to the gifts for the 
earliest childhood ; he reserves for the second period of childhood a 
whole collection of new playthings contained in a box with 14 solids 
which he sent to his pupil as the support of his exposition. The 
object of this collection is to give the child the intuition of the deriv- 
atives of the cube with their intermediate forms, an intuition which 
the school in its turn will still later fathom and generalize. It plays 
the same part, in the intermediate class, as the second gift does in the 
kindergarten. It is also very closely allied to the kindergarten. The 
ball, the cylinder and the cube under its double aspect (first as a pure, 
mathematical cube, then as a cube perforated, and adapted, therefore, 
to different transformations), form the first four of fourteen solids 
which are arranged in two parallel series; one comprises the forms 
which go from the cube to the ball, the other those between the ball 
and the cube ; two lateral compartments contain the complementary 
parts that serve to reconstruct the cube-type ; they may be used for 
new combinations, and thus furnish material for an infinity of plays ; 
Frobel himself points out as an excellent recreation the recognition of 
the different bodies by touch, with the eyes closed. 

To these four bodies of the kindergarten, succeed first the" octohe- 
dron, the rhombododecahedron and the tetrahedron, with their intermedi- 
ates, then the prisms and oblique pyramids. "These fourteen solids," 
says Frobel, in closing his letter, " introduce you into the whole kingdom 
and domain of nature and bodies in their thi'ee principal series of de- 
velopment, according to the modifications suffered by the surfaces, 
edges or angles. The formation of the bodies here closes ; but the 
development is pursued by means of the forms of plants and animals, 
as well as by the forms of thought." 

The determination of the solids by the direction, number, size, 
union or separation of surfaces, edges and angles, is a constant provoca- 
tive to the abstract and comparative study of all the relations of exten- 
sion, and consequently an initiation into the knowledge of space, form, 
number and dimension. 

The intermediate class thus prepares for the study of crystallography 
and its laws, in the same way that the kindergarten gave the intuition 

*Tlie geometrical paper-folding of Kijhler offers one of the happiest appropriations 

of the exercises of the kindergarten to the school. 



FUKTHEK DEVELOPMENT AND ADAPTATION. 367 

of bodies. The school will have but one step to take to teach its pupils 
that salt crystallizes into cubes, alum into octohedrons, etc., in order to 
lead them to mineralogy on one side, and to chemistry on the other. 
Observations of Nature in Excursions. 

The intuition and conception of form, dimension and number lead 
anew to the intuition, the conception and the knowledge of the exter- 
nal world. Here, again, Frobel refers to the Education of Man, in 
•which he recommended to the school-masters to take their pupils at 
least once a week into the country, " not like a flock of sheep nor a 
company of soldiers, but as children with their father, younger brothei's 
with the elder, making them observe what nature offers them at every 
season. Do not' let the village teacher say in reply to this : ' my pupils 
are in the country all day ; they run about all the time in the open air.' 
They run about in the open air, it is true, but they do not live in the 
country ; they do not live in nature and with it. They are like the 
inhabitants of a beautiful situation, where they were born and have 
grown up, but who have no suspicion of its beauty." Frobel meets 
another objection. " Father, instructor, educator," he says, " do not 
say ' I, myself, know nothing of that ; ' the question here, is not to 
communicate acquired knowledge, but to arouse new knowledge. You 
will make observations, and you will provoke your pupils and yourself 
to the consciousness of what you shall have observed. To know the 
energetic legality of nature and its unity, there is no need of conven- 
tional denominations of objects of nature or of their properties, but 
only a pure conception and definite designation of those objects, ac-' 
cording to their essence and the essence of language. The knowledge 
of the name already given to the object and in general use, is of very little 
importance ; nothing is essential but the clear intuition and designation 
of the properties not only in particular but in general. Give the object 
jof nature its common local name, or if you absolutely know no name for 
it, give it the one suggested at the moment, or what is infinitely better, 
make use of some substitute or circumlocution until you discover, no 
matter where, the name generally adopted, and thus put your knowl- 
edge in harmony with the general knowledge. 

" This is why, when you lead your pupils into the country, you 
should not say : ' I have no knowledge of the objects of nature, I do 
not know their names.' Should you have only the most elementary 
instruction, the faithful observation of nature will bring you infinitely 
more elevating and profound knowledge, external or internal, more living 
knowledge of individuality and diversity, than the ordinary books j'ou 
would be able to acquire and to comprehend will teach you. Besides, 
this supposed superior knowledge commonly rests upon remarks which 
the simplest man is able to make, often upon phenomena which the 
simplest man, with little or no expense, sees better than the most costly 
experiments will show him, provided he always takes his eyes with 
him to see with." 



368 FUKTHER DEVELOPMENT AND ADAPTATION. 

Frbbel attaches the natural sciences to this contemplation of the exter- 
nal world in a circumference more and more extended, and particularly 
as a germ and point of departure, the science of botany. With botany 
is connected, in an entirely organic and living way, the knowledge of 
the surface of the earth, "for certain plants are companions of the 
water, and grow on the border of the stream or river ; others prefer 
the carpet of the meadows and valleys, or the fresh and balmy air of 
mountains ; others still were brought from distant countries. There- 
fore plants are excellent guides for the study of geography. Also bot- 
any always seconds the education of the sense of color and form, by 
the reproduction of leaves and flowers in drawing or painting." 

Such are the suggestions left by Frobel, in view of establishing a 
bond between the two degrees of primary instruction, between the 
concrete and the abstract. They are amply sufficient if not to the 
elaboration of the complete programme of the school proper, at least 
for the immediate organization of the intermediate class or the lower 
section of the primary school. By carrying back to unity the intui- 
tions and knowledge which have come to the child by fragments ; by 
restoring the principle of action that animated antiquity, so as to com- 
bine knowing and doing in their industry, Frbbel gave a real basis to 
education. It cannot be denied that there still exists in the realization 
of his gigantic work more than one gap and more than one want of 
equilibrium. But he has traced out the plan, surveyed the ground, and 
collected the materials ; it is for the men of initiative and of good will 
to do the rest. 



III. 

THE KINDEKGAETEN. 



INTEODUCTION. 



Before giving specimens of good work, actually done or sug- 
gested for consideration by thoughtful and experienced educators 
in the Kindergarten field, we will introduce some evidence of 
progress in the manuals and methods of child culture generally in 
Old and New England and in Germany. 

The New England Primer we give entire from plates of the 
Webster reprint of the edition of 1777. As a manual for teach- 
ing the elements of written speech, it is impossible to conceive 
anything more primitive except the Hornbook. 

As a manual for memorizing good moral precepts and religious 
dogmas in harmony with the creed of the parents, the Primer 
served a good purpose, but the strength of New England pedagogy 
lay in the habits of obedience, reverence, and industry of Mew 
England Homes. 

The paper by Dr. Busse, from the edition of Diesterweg's 
Wegwetser, published after his death, is in the Froebelian spirit, 
and indicates Kindergarten work in the Primary School. 

"We close with an early Kindergarten Paper, issued by the 
Editor of this Journal in 1867, to justify a recommendation made 
by him as Commissioner of Education in a Special Report on the 
Organization of Public Schools in the District of Columbia*. In 
this report submitted to the United States Senate in 1868, it is 
recommended, " that the lowest grade of the proposed system, the 
Primary School should cover the play period of the child's life," 
and that "the Primary School should include the institution 
known as the Kindergarten." " As the great formative period of 
the human being precedes the age at which children now attend 
the public school, it is necessary that by some formal arrangement, 
public or private, the age of impression should not be lost for the 
best purposes, and that instruction in language, manners, observa- 
tion, and all that constitutes the early development of the human 
being should be begun in the proposed system; and I know of no 
agency so philosophical and attractive for these purposes as the 
Kindergarten of Froebel." 



* In the Appendix to the Report referred to in account of Systems of Public Instruc- 
tion in the Capitols and large Cities of Europe— Berlin, Vienna, Dresden, etc. In another 
Appendix is given the Organization and Instrnction of Public Schools in the cities of the 
United States. The entire document of 912 pages, will be found in volume XIX of tha 
American Journal of Education. 



A-B-C-BOOKS AND PRIMERS. 

We propose in this paper to bring together various memoranda 
which we have made in our reading, respecting the books and me- 
chanical contrivances, and to some extent the modes resorted to in 
different countries to introduce children to a knowledge of the ele- 
ments of their mother tongue. 

Anciently at the educational institutions of the Bramins in India, 
a peculiar symbolic use of the letters existed. The letter A, for 
instance, is represented as god among the letters. 

Among the Chinese the first book is the Pe-kia-sivg, or Primer, 
in which the names of the individuals of a himdred families (radi- 
cals of a hundred classes of words,) are given to be committed to 
memory by the pupils. The second book is the Tsa-tse, which 
contains many things which every body needs to know in every- 
day life. After this follows the Tsien-tse-ouen, a collection of a 
thousand letters. The fourth, San-the-king, contains trisyllabic 
verses, in which are taught the rudiments of morality and history. 

In the schools of Persia, more than a thousand years ago, ABC 
tables came into use, in which A is the first and J the last letter. 

In the Greek school the child first learned the letters in their 
order, each by its name, and not by its sound ; that is, Alpha, Beta, 
(kc, to Omega. The letters were probably hung upon a cord, and 
also described orally, and the scholars set to guessing them out in 
various ways, according to the inventiveness and animation of the 
teacher. After this came the special study of the vowels ((pwvai,) 
and then the putting together of single letters (rfuXXa/Si'^siv,) which 
sounded very much like our old-fashioned spelling ; Bet' Alpha, Ba ; 
Bet' Epsilon, Be ; Bet' Iota, Bi ; Gamm' Alpha, Ga, &c. These 
short words were spelled until this A B Ab was well acquired. 

There is not sufficient ground to decide whether there was any 
systematic method for dividing words into syllables. By this 
method of learning, it was some time, perhaps several years, before 
much facility in reading was acquired. The boys tried to distin- 
guish between long and short syllables, to attend to the accent, 
which is so odd and difficult a matter for us, and especially to ob- 
Berve the musical variation of tone which characterizes the method 



372 



AB-C-BOOKS AND PRIMERS 



of speaking and declaiming in vogue at Athens. Writing was not 
learned along with reading, but probably after some knowledge had 
been acquired of the latter. 

While the intellectual training of the Spartans was confined to 
the narrow limits of music and sharpening the intellect, insomuch 
that they could hardly read or write at all, instruction and educa- 
tion were at Athens upon a very different footing. The demand 
there for a comprehensive education gave employment to a great 
number of teachers who instructed each in a separate and exclu- 
sive department. 

The children learned to read and write in the syllabic method. 
Dionysius of Halicarnassus writes : 

" We first learn the names of the letters, then their forms and 
length, then syllables and their usual variations. Then we begin to 
read and to write, but syllable-wise and slowly, until we have ac- 
quired some facihty, and then connectedly and as we choose. Plato, 
[Laws, 7, 818,) puts reading and writing together; and he says 
that boys must study their letters until they can read and write." 

The study of reading was a sort of musical instruction ; for the 
children had to observe the longs and shorts, the raising and lower- 
ing of the voice at the syllables, and the greater or less volume of 
tone. That their reading was very far from being monotonous, and 
was really a kind of singing, is rendered probable from the general 
musical character of the Greeks, which would be likely to make 
their grammatists (teachers) teach and the pupils read more and 
more in that way, as time proceeded. The greatest speed in read- 
ing, Avriting, and music, was diligently sought. 

Amongst the poetical works which were used for reading and 
meinorizing, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey were preeminent, and were 
also highly esteemed by the Spartans. JEsop also served for a 
school reading book ; and he who was not well acquainted with 
him, was thought but an ignorant fellow. His fables, however, were 
used for the smaller boys ; the elder read chiefly in Simonides. 

Among the various systematized helps was the following : — 

The sophist Atticus Herodes, (as Philostratus says in his life of 
him) to assist his son, who had small intellectual endowments, and 
so poor a memory that he could not learn his letters, got together 
twenty-four boys of the same age, to whom he gave the names of 
the letters, and instructed them along with his son, that by calling 
his companions by name, he might learn the alphabet. 

Among the early Romans there were no public schools, but chil- 
dien received their instruction from tutors or pedagogues. This 
pedagogue, who was usually an old slave, had often the duty not 



A-BC— BOOKS AND PRIMERS. 3^3 

only of instructing (instituere) the boy to read, but of overseeing 
his behavior genei'ally (monere.) Instruction was in strictness the 
duty of the father, and many eminent Romans did in fact teach 
their own children ; Augustus, for instance, to some extent ; Cato, 
altogether. Although the latter had a slave for the purpose of in- 
structing his boys in grammar, he himself taught his son reading, 
swimming, and other exercises, on the principle that a father could 
manage a son better than a slave. Still, there were many teachers 
who instructed in reading, writing, and arithmetic, for which last 
the boys used small tablets. Such a teacher was called ludimagis- 
ter. Every school was called ludus, but the reading-school, 
{SiSa.(iy.aks7oM) ludits sive taberna literarvm ; where there was often 
a booth, pergula. Quinctilian advised to furnish letters of bone or 
some suitable material, for children to use in learning to read, quad 
tractare, intaeri, nominare jucundum sit infantiae. 

In reading, which was usually commenced before the seventh 
year, the Romans as well as the Greeks appear to have used the syl- 
labic method ; for Quinctilian treats not only of the single letters, 
their characteristics and relations to each other, to syllables and 
words, but has many clear references to it as an established prac- 
tice. " The smaller children strive to learn the elements and sylla- 
bles ; and one of the older ones repeats them to them, clearly, and 
one at a time ; so that it is particularly necessary to have regard to 
the elocution of teachers and of the larger scholars," Evidently, a 
clear and correct elocution was reckoned of great importance. After 
single letters, syllables and words, they learned to write longer ones, 
and verses ; which were perhaps repeated over by the older ones and 
spoken after them by the younger.* 

The diffusion of books being so much more costly and difficult 
than in our days, the learned usually read very much less material 
than now, but learned more by hearing ; and good readers were 
therefore more and more required in the schools. Longer extracts 
than are now made were dictated, and surprising quantities of them 
learned by heart and retained in the memory. The saying was uni- 
versally received, that men must read much ; not many books. 
According to Quinctilian's school dialogues, the rudiments of gram- 
mar were taught along with reading ; etymology, definition, parts 
of speech, inflection, &c. The apparatus for writing was a wax 
tablet, written upon with a sharp-pointed stylus or pencil. Wax 
"vas used to facilitate corrections. Instruction in reading seems to 
^ave been given twice a day.f 

* In the time of the Romans, there were schools of mutual instruction. 

t See Cramer's Hint, of Ed. and Inslr. among the Ancients, Vol. I, p. 433, <tc., (1832.) 



g^^ ABC— BOOKS AND PRIMERS. 

The grammarian Kallias composed a theory of grammar in verse, 
or an A B C book in the form of a drama.* 

The prologue, as the part first spoken by the chorus, gave the 
twenty-four letters in their order, and then the mode of using and 
combining them in words, which is their principal use. Then came 
a chorus of A B Ab, in verse, and to a melody which was the same 
to all the syllables ; so that the seventeen consonants and seven 
vowels were figuratively represented as being paired together in a 
choral manner, or in antistrophic chanting. 

After this followed a discourse relating to the vowels, in which, 
as was done for each letter in the prologue, each successive vowel 
was distinguished by a paragraph or sort of punctuation mark, so 
that it and its length were easily discernible. 

After the vowels came the other divisions of the letters ; the long 
and short vowels probably coming first, then the mutes, liquids, 
&c., apparently with a verse to each letter, as in the prologue. 
Interspersed with these exercises was given the practice in syllabiz- 
ing, arranged according to the classes of consonants, or according 
to the place of the two consonants of a syllable, whether before, 
after, or on each side of the vowel, from Alpha to Omega ; an ex- 
tensive field for choral exercises. 

That Kallias really arranged the A B C in a dramatic form, for 
use in the boys' schools, there seems to be sufiScient reason for be- 
lieving, when we consider how much of the life of the Greeks, and 
especially of the Athenians, was passed in entertainments, and how 
their lively plastic nature found its greatest pleasure in dramatic 
exhibitions. As with the old, so with the young ; and the boys, 
by name and by a sort of flimsy imitation, probably brought the 
school into some similitude to the beloved theater. The author 
also knew the dryness of the fundamental principles of language, 
and sought to conceal it by an artistic treatment. 

An especial reason for a dramatic presentation of the letters may 
be found in the fact that just about the time of Kallias, i. e., A. C. 
403, under the archon Euclides, the new or Ionic alphabet, which 
is that of our tragedy, was introduced, which added to that before 
in use, the Cadmean or Phoenician, two long vowels, three double 
consonants, and three aspirates. Archinus, who introduced the 
Ionic alphabet into Athens, procured a decree of the people that all 
teachers should teach it in their schools. Such being the case, it 
was not at all unreasonable that Kallias should seek an expeditious 
way of introducing the new alphabet amongst both old and young, 

* See Welcker's A-BC—book of Kallias in the form of a chart in the Rhenish Museum 
of Philology. 



GERMAN AND ENGIJSH PRIMERS. 



375 



In the library at Muuich, there is an A-B-C-book (of a few leaves) of the fif- 
teenth century, with illustrations, by a master- hand, and at Milan there is an- 
other adorned with miniatures by Leonardo da Vinci, in 1496. 

When the Primer — (Primareus,) a little book containing the offices of the 
Roman Catholic Church, [which from its being the most common book in the 
monasteries, as well as because it contained prayers which the young and old 
were requu-ed to know, became the manual of the school as well as of ihe altar 
and for this purpose was prefaced with a few leaves devoted to the Alphabet, 
and to words of one and two syllables] — came to be printed both in Latin and 
in German for rehgious instruction, its scholastic use was continued. Tlie 
"Child's Little Primer" by Luther, with the Lord's Prayer, the Commandments, 
Creed, and Catechism, was one of the earliest and most popular school books in 
the Protestant schools. Several of the great educational reformers of a later 
day began at the beginning by improving the A-B-C-books. Basedow at 
Magdeburg, adopted a constructive method of teaching the letters, by present- 
ing them made in gingerbread — then rewarding success in remembering the 
name by gift of the substance. This founder of Philanthropinism should be 
held in everlasting and grateful remembrance by A-b-c-darians. The earliest 
illustrated printed alphabet and Primer in German, dates back over two hun- 
dred years, and was composed by Bienrod, a school ofiQcer in Wernigerode. The 
letter A, symbolized by the Ape feeding on an Apple and rhymes thus, 

The Ape is then a funny beast 
When on an Apple he doth feast. 

In England the ecclesiastical and royal gate to learning was by the Primer 
and the Horn-book — the latter being simply the first leaf of the Primer pasted 
on wood and protected by transparent horn. In 1534, a "Prymer in Englyshe 
with certain Prayers, and Goodly Meditations, very necessary for all people that 
understand not ihe Latyne tongue" was printed by John Byddell. In 1545, 
King Henry VIII. ordered an English "Form of Public Prayer," or "Prymer to 
be printed," "as set forth by the Kinge's Majestic and his Clergie, to be taught, 
lerued and red ; and none other to be used throughout all his dominions." Tiiis 
little book, besides prayers, contains several psalms, with lessons and anthems in 
English. This Primer, with various additions, in some editions with the Cate- 
chism prepared by Cranmer "for the singular commoditie and profyte of 
Childe and Yong People " and in others, with a page or two devoted to the 
alphabet, and words of one and two syllables, was used in schools and 
families as the first book of instruction with children. 

The Horn-book of Queen Elizabeth's time, according to a specimen in the 
British Museum, consisted of a single leaf about two inches long by one and a 
half wide, commencing with a cross, which thus serves to designate the first row, 
followed by the alphabet in small and large letters, which the vowels, and their 
combinations with the consonants, the Lord's Prayer, and the Roindr. (not the 
Arabic) numerals, — the whole covered with horn. Ben Johnson refers to this 
manual of children. Shakspeare in " Love's Labors Lost," describes the School- 
master Holafernes — " He teaches boys the Horn-books," and m Richard III., one 

of the characters, 

" — hearkens after prophecies and dreams, 
And from the cross-row plucks the letter G, 
And says a wizard told him that by G 
U\e iccMorlicinViprifpr) shrmlft he." 



376 



BRINSLY.— COOTE. 



John Brinsly, author of Ludus Literarius, was born about 1587, in Lincoln- 
shire, and was both schoolmaster and non-conformist minister at Great Yar- 
mouth. He died in 1665. In 1617 he published Pueriles Confahulationcula, 
and in 1647, Vocabularium Mttricuvi. The foUowing is the title of a treatise 
of his printed in 1622: — 

A Consulation for our Grammnr Schonles : or a fiiithful and most comfortable Encouragement 
for laying a sure foundation of a Good Learning in our Schooles, and for a pros|ierons building 
thereupon. More Specially for nil those of the inferior sort, and all ruder countries and pliices ; 
nnmely, for Ireland, Wales, Virciniii, with the Summer Islands, and for their more speedie at- 
taining of our English tongue, &c. London, 1622. 

EDWARD COOTE — THE ENGLISH SCHOOLMASTER.* 

Hoole, in his Petty School, refers to the English Schoolmaster as better fitted 
for master than scholar. But the following homely advice seems very easily 
understood by the latter: — 

THE SCHOOLMASTKR TO HIS SCHOLARS. 



' My child and scholar take good heed 
unto the words that here are set, 
And see thou do accordingly, 
or else be sure thou shall be beat. 

First, I command thee God to serve, 
then, to thy parents, duty yield ; 

Unto all men be courteous, 
and mannerly, in town and field. 

Your cloaths unbuttoned do not use, 
let not your hose ungartered be ; 

Have handkerchief in readiness, 
Wash hands and face, or see not me. 

Lose not your books, ink-liorns, or pens, 
nor girdle, garters, hat or band, 

Let shooes be tyed, pin shirt-band close, 
keep well your hands at any hand. 



If broken-hos'd or shoe'd you go, 

or slovenly in your array, 
Without a girdle, or untrust, 

then you and I must have a fray. 

If that thou cry, or talk aloud, 
or books do rend, or strike with knife 

Or laugh, or play unlawfully, 
then you and I must be at strife. 

If that you curse, miscall, or swear, 
if that you pick, filch, steal, or lye ; 

If you forget a scholar's part, 
then must you sure your points untye. 

If that to school you do not go, 
when time doth call you to the same ; 

Or, if you loiter in tne streets, 
vf hen we do meet, then look for blame. 



Wherefore, my child, behave thyself, 

so decently, in all assays. 
That thou may'st purchase parents love, 

and eke obtain thy ma.ster's praise." 



* The following is the title-page of this once famous school-book, printed from a copy of 
the fortieth edition, presented to the author of this sketch, by George Livermore, Esq., of 
Cambridge, Mass. 

" THE 

ENGLISH 

S C H O O L-M A S TE R. 

Teaching all his Scholars, of what age so ever, the most easy, short, and perfect order of 
distinct Reading, and true Writing our English-tongue, that hath 
ever yet been known or published by any. 
And further also, teacheth a direct course, how many unskilful person may easily both under- 
£tand any hard English words, which they shall in Scriptures. Sermons, or else-where hear 
or read ; and also be made able to use the same aptly themselves : and generally whatsoever 
is necessary to be known for the En^Hah speech : so that he which hath this book only need- 
eth to buy no other to make h'm fit from his Letters to the Grammnr-School. lor an 
Apprentice, or any other private use, so far as concerneth English : And 
therefore it is made not only for Children, though the first book 
be meer childish for them, but also for all other ; especially 
for those that are ignorant in the Latin Tongue. 
In the next Page the School-Master hangeth forth his Table to the view ol all beholders, set- 
ting forth some of the chief Commodities of his profession. 
Devised for thy sake that wantest any part of this skill ; by Edward Coote, Master of the Free- 
school in Saint Edmund's- Bury. 
Perused and approved by publick Authority; and now the 40 time Imprinted: with certain 
Copies to write by, at the end of this Book, added. 
Printed by A. M. and R. R. for the Company of Stationers, 1680. 



EARLY ILLUSTRATED SCHOOL BOOKS. 



We shall avail ourselves of recent applications of Photography to 
transferring engravings to electrotypes, ready to be used in ordinary 
type printing, to give our readers exact impressions from the illus- 
trations of some of the earliest school books. We have before us 
a little book of about the size of the '■'■New England Primer Im- 
proved" with the following title, 

"A Guide for the Child and Youth, m Two Parts. The first for Chil- 
dren : containing plain and pleasant directions to read English ; with Prayers, 
Graces, and Instructions, fitted for the capacity. The second for Tmdh : Teaching 
to write. Cast Accounts, and Read more perfectly ; with several other Yarietiea, 
both pleasant and profitable. By T. H., M. A., Teacher of a private school 
London: 1762." 

In his Address " to the Parents, or others," Mr. T. H., says : " When 
I consider how Ignorance of late had prevailed amongst the Vulgar, 
and how those who never learned anything themselves, wiU yet pre- 
tend to teach others ; I was almost at a loss whether I should pro- 
ceed in this small but useful Tract. But since a blessed Sunshine 
hath appeared in our Horizon, I resolved to publish it for the use 
and Benefit of Children, and those of riper years." This is followed 
by " The Capital Roman Letters ;^^ ^'■The Small Roman Letters ;" 
''The Vowels;'' ''The Consonants;" "Double Letters;"" '^The Great 
ItalicJc Letters ;'' '■'The Small Italick ;'' "■Syllables, ab, eb, ib, ob, ub, 
and ba, be, bi, bo, bu, by, c&c. ;" which is followed by a page of "The 
Dutiful Child's Promises," viz. : — 

" I will fear God and honour my King. 

I will honour my Father and Mother. 

I will obey my Superiors. 

I wUl submit to my Elders. 

I will love my Friends. 

I will hate no Man. 

I will forgive my Enemies, and pray to God for them." 

Then follows the illustrated Alphabet for " The Child's Guide,** 
which is again introduced as "The Youth's Guide," with extracts 
mainly from the Bible. We combine the two in the following pages. 
The illustrations, as well as the rhymes, were either copied from, or 
suggested by "The New England Primer Improved" or else intro- 
duced into the latter from "The Guide'' or else both were copied or 
suggested from an earlier original, which we have not the facilities 
at hand for determining. The illustrations were copied for this 
Journal by the American Phototype Company^ whose office is in 
Leroy Place, Bleeker Street, New York. 



378 



A GUIDE FOR THE CHILD AND YOtlTH— 1762. 



Ihe CfhUd's Guide. 
A. 



In Adcm^e Fall, 
We siiinedalL 



B. 

This Book attend. 
Thy Life to mend. 

C. 

The CcU doth play, 
And after slay. 

D. 

The Dog doth bite 
A Thief at Night 



An Eagk^a flight 
Is out of sight. 




Vie TowOCa Oidde. 

And Adam called his 
Wife's Name Eve, because 
she was the mother of all 
living. 



Be ye doers of the Word, 
and not hearers only, deceiv- 
ing your own Souls. 



Every Creature of God is 
good ; and by him were all 
things created. 



A living dog is better than 
a dead Lion. 



Riches make themselves 
Wings, they flee away as 
Eaglertowaxda Heaven. 



The Idle Ibol, 

Is wbipt at SchooL 



As runs the Glass, 
Man's Life doth pass. 



H. 

My Book and Reari 
Shall never part 



Jesus did dye, 
For thee and L 



K. 

King Charles the Good, 
No Man of Blood. 




The Heart of a Ibol is in 
his Mouth; but the Mouth 
of a vase man is in his 
Heart. — Sirach. 



Nothing is more precious 
than Time, yet nothing is 
less esteemed of — Bern. 



Blessed are the pure in 
ffeari, for they shall see 
God. 



At the Name of J B S U S 
every Knee shall bow. 



Is it fit to say to a King, 
Thou art wicked? And to 
Princes, Ye are ungodly? 



A QPIDE FOR THE CHILD AND YOUTH— 1762. 



37y 



The Chiles Guide. 

L. 

The Lyon bold, 

The Laml doth hold, 

M. 

The Moon gives Light, 
In time of Night. 

N. 

yighiingcdes sing, 
In time of Spring. 

0. 

The Boyal Oak our King did 

save 
Prom fatal Stroke of Rebel 

Slave. 



Peter denies 

His Lord, and criea. 




ITie ToviUi^a Guide. 

The Wicked flee when no 
man pursueth, but the Right- 
eous are bold as a Lion. 



The LORD hath ap- 
pointed the Moon for Sea- 
sons. 



The time of singing of 
Birds is come. 



Howl, ye Oaks of Ba- 
shan. — Zech. i. 

And Peter remembered the 
words of JESUS, which 
he said to him, Before the 
cock crow thou shalt deny 
me thrice. And he went 
out, and wept bitterly. 



Q. 

Queen Esther came in Royal 

State, 
To save the Jews from dismal 

fate. 

R. 

Rachel doth mourn 
For her first-bom. 



Samuel anoints 
Whom God appoints. 



Kme cuts down all 
Both great and small. 

U. 

Urtamt b^autious Wife, 
l£iM^ .^if-*^ seek his Life. 




When the King saw Esther 
the Queen, he held out the 
golden Scepter which was in 
his hand. 



In Rama was a voice 
heard, Rachel weep- 
ing, &c. 

Samuel took a vial of Oil, 
and poured it on SauVs 
head, and kissed him. 

Time and Patience teach 
all men to live content : or 
Time is life's best Counsellor. 
Arlst. 

When the Wife of Uriah 
heard that her Husband was 
dead, she mourned, and af- 
terwards she became David! s 
Wife. 



380 



A GUIDE FOR THE CHILD AND YOUTH— 1788. 



The CkilePs Owde. 
W. 

Whales in the Sea 
Gkxl's Voice obey. 



Xerxes the Great did die, 
And so must you and I. 

T. 

ToutKs forward slips 
Death soonest nips. 



Zacheus, he 

Did climb the Tree 

His Lord to see. 




The YouKKa Guide. 

Grod created great Whales, 
and every living thing that 
moveth. 

The King's heart is in the 
hand of the Lord, as the 
Rivers of Water, he tumeth 
it whithersoever he will. 

Wherewithal shall a young 
man cleanse his way? by 
taking heed thereto accord- 
ing to thy Word. 

There was a rich Man 
among the Publicans named 
Zacheus ; the same sought to 
see Jesus, but could not for 
the press, because he was 
low. So he ran and climbed 
into a Sycamore-tree. 



THE OHILD's behaviour FEOM MORNING TO NIGHT. 



First in the Morning when thou dost 

awake, 
To God for his Graoe thy Petition make. 
Some heavenly Prayer use daily to say, 
And the God of Heaven wiU bless thee 

alway, 

ChAli, after thou hast prayed to God for 
his Assistance^ observe these following 
Bules. 
Down from thy Chamber when as thou 

shalt go, 
Thy Parents salute & the household also. 
Thy Hands see thou wash, thy Head also 

comb ; 
Keep clean thy apparel both abroad and 

at home. 
This done,thy Satchel,<fe thy Books take ; 
And to the School haste thou do make. 

At going to School. 
In going your way, and passing the street, 
Thy Hat put otf, salute those you meet. 
When to the School thou shalt resort, 
Salute thy Master, I do thee exhort : 
Thy fellows also, in token of Love, 
Lest of uukuidness they thee reprove : 
Learn then in thy youth, for it is too true. 
It will be too late when Age doth ensue. 
If thou doubt any thing, desire to be told ; 
Tt is no shame to learn, be thou never so 

old. 
Wlien from School you shall take your 

way, 
Make haste to your home, and stay not 

to play : 
The House then entering, in the Parents 

presence, 
Humbly Salute them, with due reverence. 
At the Table. 

When down to the Table thy Parents 

shall sit, 
In place be ready for purpose most fit. 



Be meek in thy Carriage, stare none in 

the Face ; 
First hold up your Hands, and then say 

thy Grace. 
The Grace being said, if able thou be 
To serve at the Table, it will become 

thee. 
If thou canst not wait, presume in no case, 
But in sitting down, to your Betters give 

place. 
Suflfer each Man first served to be ; 
For it is a point of great courtesie. 
Let not thy Tongue at the Table walk ; 
And of no matter either jangle or talk ; 
For Caio doth say that in old and in 

young. 
The first step to Virtue is to bridle the 

Tongue. 

In the Chwrch. 

When unto the Church thou shalt tak« 
thy way. 

Kneeling or standing to God humbly 
pray." 

A contrite Heart he will not despise, 

But doth account it a sweet Sacrifice. 

Unto him thy Sins Shew and confess. 

Asking for them Pardon and* Forgive- 
ness. 

Then ask thou in Faith, not doubting to 
have. 

And thou shalt receive that which thon 
dost crave. 

More merciful ne is than Tongue can ex- 
press. 

The Author and Giver of Grace and 
Goodness. 

In the Church comely thy self well be- 
have; 

Sober in carriage, with countenanoe 

frave. 
,ord doth call it the House of Prayer. 
It must not be used as a Market or Fair 



THE NEW ENGLAND PRIMEK.— 1777. 



881 




The Honorable JOHN HANCOCK, Efq; 
Prefident of the American Congress. 



THE 

IfE"W-KNGLAN0 

|P R I M E R| 

,y? IMPROVED ^y, 

^For the more eafy attaining the true^ 

^ reading of Englifh. ^ 

>>/ >^ 

^^ TO WHICH IS ADDED ^ 

^The Affembly of Divines, andy^ 
^ Mr. Cotton's Catechifm. }<^ 

|> BOSTON: « 

^Printed by Edward D r a p e r, a«< 
^ his Printing-OfSce, in Newbury-i 
^} Street, and iSoZtZby Jo H N Bo YLE^ 
^ in Marlborough- Street. 1777. ^ 



^^^^^^^m^^^^^^^^ * ^^^-^o^i^^t*^^^'^ * 



A. Divine Song of Praife to G O D , for a Child, 
by the Rev. Dr. Watts. 

JLWOW glorious is our heavenly King^ 
Jlm. Who reigns above the Sky ! 
Hoio piall a Child pre fume tojing 
His dreadful Majejly I 

How great his Power is none can tell, 
Nor thinkjiow large his Grace : 

Nor men below, nor Saints that dwell 
On high before his Face. 

Nor Angels that ftand round the Lord, 

Can fearch his fecret will : 
But they perform his heav''nly Word, 

Andfmg his Praifes ftill. 

Then let me join this holy Tram, 
And my fir ft Offerings bring ; 

The eternal GOt) u'ill not difdain 
To hear an Infant fing. 

My Heart refohes, my Tongue obeys^ 

And Angels piall rejoice. 
To hear their mighty Maker''s Praife, 

Sound from a feeble Voice. 



The young Infant's or Child's mom- 
ing Prayer. From Dr. Watts. 

ALMIGHTY God the Maker of every 
^^ Thing in Heaven and Earth; the Dark- 
nefs goes away, and the Hay light comes at thy 
Coinmand. Thou art good and doeft good con- 
tinually, r 1 ^ 

I thank thee that thou haft taken fuch Care of 
me this Night, and that I am alive and well tnis 
Morning. 

Save me, O God, from Evil, all this Hay lortg; 
and let me love and ferve thee forever, for the 
S(tke of Jefus Chnp thy Son. Amen. 



The Infant's or young Child's 
Evening Prayer. From Dr. Watts. 

OLORD Godioho knoweflall Things, thou 
feeft me by Night as ivell as by Day. 
Iftray thee for ChrifVs Sake, forgive me what- 
Joever 1 have dune aniifs this Day, and keep me 
all this Night, while I am aflecp. 

I defire^ to lie down under thy Care, and 
to abide forever under thy Bleffing, for thou 
art a God of all Power and everlafling Mercu. 

A.M EN. 



^^m^^^^^M^^^^^:^^ ^mm^m^^m^^'^^^^* 



382 THE NEW ENGLAND PETMER.— 1777. 



Eafy Syllables, <^c 



abcdefghijklmS 

nopqrfstuv ^ 

w X y z &. ^ 

Vowels. ^ 

a e i o u J. ^ 

^ Coiifonants. -^ 

^b c d f g h j k 1 m n p q r f St V w X z^ 
^ Double Letters. ^ 

idi ff fi fl ffi ffl fh fi ffi 11 ir {M 

% r • , ^ 

j!^ Italick Letters. ^ 

l^o; .F5 Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg wM 

^li Jj Kk LI Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq^ 

^RrSfs TtUuVvWfvXxYyZzM 
^ W: 

K Italick Double Letters. w 

|^#/# flffllhfiffffi fiM 



*/'^/'Vsk/Nsl 



Ba 


be 




hi 


bo 


bi 


ca 
da 
fa 


ce 
de 

fe 




ci 
di 
fi 


CO 

do 
fo 


CI 

di 


ha 


be 




hi 


gf 

ho 


g« 
hi 


ka 
la 


ke 
le 




ji 
ki 

li 


jo 
ko 
lo 


J'J 

k^ 
lu 


ma 


ma 




mi 


mo 


ID 


na 


ne 




ni 


no 


m 


pa 
ra 
fa 


po 
re 
fe 




ri 
fi 


po 
ro 
fo 


ft 


ta 


te 




ti 


to 


W 


va 


ve 




vi 


vo 


vu 


wa 


we 




wi 


wo 


wu 


ya 
za 


ye 
zo 




zi 


yo 
zo 


yu 
zu 




Words of one 


Syllable. 




Age 
Babe 
Cat 
Deal 




all 
boef 
cake 
dead 




ape 
beft 
crown 
dry 


are 

bold 
ci;]) 
dull 



Great Letters. Words of one Syllable 

Eat ear eggs eye* 

ABCDEFGHIJKI. MNO E*«« ^®®\ ^^^^: ^°"^ 

Gate good grais great 

xt f\ o e T" TT WT V ^T rj Hand hat head heart 

f (4 K b 1 U W A 1 Z. i^g i^j^ ijlg j^,jb 

Kick kind kneel know 

Ab eb ib ob nb Lamb lame land long 

ac ec ic oc uc Made mole moon moutl 

ad ed id od ud Name night noife noon 

af ef if of uf Oak once one ounc< 

ag eg ig og ug Pain pair pence pound 

aj ej ij oj uj Quart queen quick quilt 

ak ek ik ok iik Rain raife rofe run 

al el il ol nl Saint fage fait faid 

am em im om um Take talk time throat 

an en in on un Vain vice vile view 

ap ep ip op up Way wait wafie woidd 
ar er ir or ur Words of two Syllables. 

BA es is OS us Ab-fent ab-hor a-pron au-thor 

at et it ot ut Ba-bel be-came be-gtiile bold-ly 

av er iv ov uv Ca-pon cel-lar con-ftant cub-boa: 

ax ex ix ox ux Dai-ly de-pend di-vers du-ty 

az ez iz oz uz Ea-gle ea-ger en-close e-ven 

Fa-ther fa-mous fe-male fu-ture 

Eafy (ra-ther gar-den gra-vy glo-ry 



THE NEW ENULAMD PRlMiiK.— 1777. 



Words of two Syllables. 



Hei-nous 

In-fant 

Ja-cob 

La-bour 

Ma-ny 



hate-ful 

in-deed 

jeal-ous 

la-den 

ma-ry 



hu-mane 

iii-cence 

juf-tice 

la-dy 

mo-tive 



hus-band 

i-fland 

ju-lep 

la-zy 

mu-fick 



Words of three Syllables. 

A-bn-fing a-meiid-ing ar-gu-ment 

Bar-ba-roiis be-ne-fit beg-gar-l\ 

Cal-cu-late can-die-stick con-foun-ded 

Dam-ni-fy dif-fi-cult drow-fi-nefs 

Ea-ger-ly em-ploy-ing evi-dence 

Fa-cul-ty fa-mi-ly fu-ne-ral 

Gar-de-ner glo-ri-ous gra-ti-tudo 

Hap-pi-ness har-mo-ny ho-li-nefs 

Words of four Syllables. 

af-fec-ti-on 

be-ne-vo-lent 

ce-re-mo-ny 

du-ti-ful-ly 

e-vi-dent~ly 

for-mi-da-bly 

gra-ci-oiis-ly 



A-bi-li-ty 

Be-ne-fi-ted 

Ca-ia-mi-ty 

De-li-ca-cy 

E-dy-fy-ing 

Fe-bru-a-ry 

Ge-ne-ral-ly 



ac-coni-pa-ny 

be-a-ti-tude 

ca-pa-ci-ly 

di-li-gent-ly 

e-ver-lafl-ing 

fi-de-li-ty 

glo-ri-fy-ing 




In A D A M • s Fall 
We finned all. 



Heaven to find, 
The Bible Mind. 



Chrift crucify'd 
For finners dy'd. 



The Deluge drown'd 
The Earth around. 



E L ij A H hid 
Bv Ravens fed. 



The judgment made 
F £ L i z afraid. 



Words of five Syllables. 
A-bo-mi-na-ble ad-mi-ra-ti-on 



Be-ne-dic-ti-on 

Ce-le-bra-ti-on 

De-cla-ra-ti'On 

E-du-ea-ti-on 

For-ni-ca-li-on 

Ge-ne-ra-ti-on 



be-ne-fi-ci-al 

con-fo-la-ti-on 

de-di-ca-ti-on 

ex-hor-ta-ti-on 

fer-men-ta-ti-on 

ge-ne-ro-fi-ty 



Words of fix Syllables. 
A-bo-mi- na-ti-on G ra-ti-fi-ca-ti-on 



Be-ne-fi-ci-al -ly 

Con-ti-nu-a-ti-on 

De-ter-nii-na-ti-on 

E-di-fi-ca-ti-oa 

Fa-rai-li-a-ri-ty 



Hu-mi-li-a-ti-on 

I-ma-gi-na-ti-on 

Mor-ti-li-ca-ti-oa 

Pu-ri-fi-ca-ti-oa 

Qua-li-fi-ca-ti-on 



A Leffon for Children. 
Pray to God. Call no ill names. 



Love God. 
Fear God. 
Serve God. 
Take not God's 
Name in vain. 
Do not Sw^ear. 
Do not Steal. 



Ufe no ill words. 
Tell no lies. 
Hate Lies. 
Speak the Truth. 
Spend your Time well 
Love your School. 
Mind your Book. 



Cheat not in your play. Strive to learn. 
Play not with bad boys. Be not a Dunce. 




As runs the Glass, 
Our Life doth pass. 



My Book and Heart 
Must never part. 



Job feels the Rod, — 
Yet bleffes GOD. 



Proud Korah's troop 
Was fwallowed up 

Ju o T fled to Zoar^ 
Saw fiery Shower 
On Sodom pour. 

Moses was he 
Who IsraePs Hoft 
Led thro' the Sea. 



TAB NEW ENGLAND PRIMER.— ITH. 




Noah did view 
The old world & new 

Young Obadias, 
David, Jos IAS 
All were pious. 

Peter deny'd 
His Lord and cry'd. 



Queen Esther fues 
And faves the Jews. 



Young pious Ruth, 
Left ail for Truth. 



Young Sam* I, dear 
The Lord did fear. 



WHO was the firft man ? 
Who was the firft woman ? 
Who was the firft Murderer ? 
Who was the firft Martyr ? 
Who was the firft Tranllated ? 
Who was the oldeft Man ? 
Who built the Ark ? 
W^ho was the Patienteft Man ? 
Who was the Meekeft Man ? 
Who led Ifrael mto Canaan ? 
Who was the ftrongest Man ? 
Who killed GoUah? 
Who was the wifeft Man ? 
Who was in the Whale's Belly ? 



Adam. 

Eve. 

Cain. 

Abel. 

Enoch. 

Methujelah. 

Noah. 

Job. 

Mofes. 

Jofhua. 

Sampfon. 

David. 

Solomon. 

Jonah. 



Who faves loft Men ? Jefus Chriji. 

Who is Jefus Chnft ? The Son of God. 
Who was the Mother of Chriji ? Mary. 
Who betrayed his Mafter ? Judas. 

Who denied his Mafter 1 Peter. 

Who was the firft Chriftian 'M.?LXiyx'{ Stephen. 
Who was chief Apoftle of the Gentiles ? Paul. 
Ttte Infants Grace before and after Meat. 
"O LESS me, O Lord, and let my food 
-*-^ ftrengther me to ferve thee, for Jesus 
Chrift's fake. Amen. 

IDefire to thank God who gives me food 
to eat every day of my life. Amen. 




Jfoung Timothy 
Learnt fin to fly. 



V A s t H I for Pride, 
Was fet afide. 



Whales in the Sea, 
GOD's Voice obey. 

X E R X B s did die, 
And fo mnft L 



While youth do chear 
Death may be near. 

ZAccHKOshe 
Did climb the Tree 
Oiur Lord to fee. 



''^|7'HA'l''s right and good now fhew me 
" ^ Lord, and lead me by thy grace and 
word. Thus fhall I be a child of God, and 
love and fear Ihv hand and rod. 



An Alphabet of Lejfons for Youth. 

\ Wife fon maketh a glad father, but a 
•^^ foolifhfon istheheavinefsof his mother. 
TO Etter is a little with the fear of the Lord, 
^^ than great treasure ot trouble therewith. 
/^ Ome unto Chrift all ya that labor and are 
^^ heavy laden and he will give you reft. 
'8^ Onot the abominable thing whichlhatc 
-■--' faith the liord. 

Xj^ Xcept a man be born again, he cannot 
~~ fee the kingdom of God. 

Vi^ Oolifhnefs is bound up in the heart of a 
-*- child, but the rod of correction fhall 
drive it far from him. 

f^ ODLINESS is profitable unto all things, 
^-* having the promife of the life that now 
is, and that which is to come. 
TTOLINESS becomes GOD's houfe 
-*--■- for ever. 
T is good for me to draw near unto 
GOD. 



THE NEW ENGLAND PRIMEK.— 1777. 



KEEP thy h.eart with all diligence, for 
out of it are the ifl'ues of lil'e. 
LIARS ihall have their part in the lake 
which burns with fire and brimUone. 
MANY are the afilictions of the right- 
ous, but the Lord delivereth them 
out of them all. 

NOW is the accepted time, now is the 
day of falvation. 

OUT of the abundance of the heart the 
mouth fpeaketh. 
PRAY to thy Father which is in fecret; 
and thy Father which fees in fecret 
(hall reward thee openly. 

QUIT you like men, be flrong, Hand faft 
• in the faith. 

REMEMBER thy Creator in the days 
of thy youth. 
SEeft thou a man wife in his own conceit, 
there is more hope of a fool than of him. 
TRUST in God at all times, ye people, 
pour out your hearts before him. 
TTPON the wicked, God (hall rain an 
^ horrible tempeft. 

WO to the wicked, it fhall be ill with 
him, for the reward of his hands 
(hall be given him. 

E"V" HORT one another daily while it is 
-A- called to day, left any of you be 
hardened thro' the deceitfulnefs of fin. 

YOUNG men ye have overcome the 
wicked one. 

ZEal hath confumed me, becaufe thy ene- 
mies have forgotten the word of God. 

The LORD'S Prayer. 
^\ UR Father which art in heaven, hallo w- 
^^ ed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. 
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 
Give us this day our daily bread. And for- 
give us our debts as we forgive our debtors. 
And lead us not into temptation. But deli- 
ver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, 
the power and the glory, forever. Amen. 

The CREED. 
T BELIEVE in God the Father Almighty 
-■- Miker of heaven and earth, and in Jefus 
Chrift his only Son our Lord, which was con- 
ceived by the Holy Ghoft, born of the Virgin 
Mary, fuffered under Pontius Pilate, was cru- 
cified, dead and buried. He defcended into 
hell. The third day he arofe again from 
the dead, and ffcended into heaven, and fit- 
teth on the right hand of God, the Father, 



Almighty. From thence he fhaU come to 
judge both the quick and the dead. I be- 
lieve in the Holy Ghoft, the Holy Catholic 
Church, the communion of Saints, the for- 
givenefs of fins, the refurrection of the body, 
and the life e^-erlafting. Amen. 



Dr. W A T T s ' s Cradle Hymn. 
W U S H my dear, lie Itill and ilumber, 
•*--*- holy angels guard thy bed. 
Heavenly blefi'ings without number, 

gently falling on thy head. 
Sleep my babe, thy food and raiment 

houfe and home thy friends provide, 
All without thy care or paymeiu, 

all thy wants are well fupply d. 
How much better thou'rt attended, 

than the Son of God could be, 
When from heaven he defcended, 

and became a child like thee. 
Solt and eafy i? thy cradle, 

coarl'e and hard thy Saviour lay. 
When his birth-place was a fiable, 

and his foftcft bed was hay. 
Bleflcd Babe ! wh'.t glorious features, 

fpotlefs fair, divinely bright ! ! 
Muft he dwell with brutal creatures, 

how could angels bear the fight ! 
Was there nothing but a manger, 

curfed finners could afibrd. 
To receive the heavenly Itranger ; 

did they thus afiront their Lord. 
Soft my child I did not chide thee, 

tho' my fong may found too hard ; 
'Tis thy mother fits befide thee, 

and her arms fliall be thy guard. 
Yet to read the Oiameful ftory, 

how the Jews abus'd their King, 
How they ferv'd the Lord of glory, 

makes me angry while I fing. 
See the kinder lliepherds round him, 

telling wonders from the fky ; 
There they fought him, there they found him, 

with his Virgin Mother by. 
See the lovely Babe a drefllng ; 

lovely Infant how he smil'd ! 
When he wept, the Mother's blefling 

sooth'd and hufh'd the holy child. 
Lo I he flurabers in his manger, > 

where the horned oxen fed ; 
Peace my darling here's no danger, 

here's no Ox a near thy bed. 
Twas to fave thee, child from dying 

fave my dear from burning flame, 



886 



THE NEW ENGLAND PRIMER.— ITH. 



Bitter groans and endlefs crying, 

that thy blefl Redeemer came. 
May'ft thou live to know and fear him, 

truft and love him all thy days ! 
Then go dw^ell for ever near him, 

fee his face and ling his praife. 
I could give thee thonfand kiOes, 

hoping what I mod delire : 
Not a mother's fondefl wiflies, 

can to greater joys afpire. 

Verses for Children. 

THOUGH I am young a little one, 
If I can fpeak and go alone, 
Then I muft learn to know the Lord, 
And learn to read his holy word. 
'Tis time to feek to God and pray 
For what I want for every day: 
I have a precious foul to fave, 
And I a mortal body have, 
Tho' I am young yet I may die, 
And haften to eternity : 
There is a dreadful fiery hell. 
Where wicked ones must ahvays dwell : 
There is a heaven full of joy. 
Where godly ones must always ftay : 
To one of thefe my foul must riy, 
As in a moment when I die : 



I rnud obey them in the Lord. 
Nor Ileal, nor lie, nor fpend ray days, 
In idle tales and foolifh plays, 
I muft obey my Lord's commands, 
Do fomething with my little hands : 
Remember my creator now. 
In youth while time will it allow. 
Young Samuel rhat little child, 
He ferv'd the Lord, liv'd undefil'd; 
Him in his fervice God employ'd. 
While Eli's wicked children dy'd: 
When wicked children mocking faid, 
To a good man. Go up bald head, 
God was difpleas'd with them and fent 
Two bears which them in pieces rent, 
I muft not like thefe children vile, 
Difpleafe my God, myfelf defile. 
Like young A b i j a h , I muft fee. 
That good things may be found in me, 
Young King J o s i a h , that blefled youth, 
He fought the Lord and lov'd the truth ; 
He like a King did act his part. 
And follow'd God with all his heart. 
The little children they did fing, 
Hofannahs to their heavenly King. 
That blelfed child young Timothy, 
Did learn God's word moft heedfidly. 



When God that made me, calls me home, 

I muft not stay I muft be gone. 

He gave me life, and gives me breath, 

And he can fave my foul from death. 

By Jesus Christ my only Lord, 

According to his holy word. 

He clothes my back and makes me warm: 

He faves my flefh and bones from harm. 

He gives me bread and milk and meat 

And all I have that's good to eat. 

When I am fick, he if he pleafe. 

Can make me well and give me eafe : 

He gives me fieep and quiet reft, 

Whereby my body is refrefli'd 

The Lord is good and kind to me. 

And very thankful I muft be : 

I muft oboy and love and fear him. 

By faith in Chrift I muft draw near him. 

I muft not fin as others do. 

Left I lie down in forrow too : 

For God is angry every day, 

With wicked ones who go aftray. 

All finful words I must reftrain : 

I muft not take God's name in vain. 

I muft not work, I muft not play, 

Upon God's holy fabbath day. 

And if my parents fpeak the word. 



It feem'd to be his recreation. 
Which made him wife unto ialvation : 
By faith in Chrift which he had gain'd 
With prayers and tears that faith unfeign'd. 
Thefe good examples were for me ; 
Like thefe good children I must be. 
Give me true faith in Chrift my Lord, 
Obedience to his holy word. 
No word is in the world like thine. 
There's none fo pure, fweet and divine. 
From thence let me thy will behold, 
And love thy w^ord above fine gold. 
Make my heart in thy ftatutes found, 
And make my faith and love abound. 
I/Ord circumeife my heart to love thee : 
And nothing in this world above thee : 
Let me behold thy pleafed face, 
And make my foul to grow in grace, 
And in the knowledge of my Lord 
And Saviour Chrift, and of his word. 

Another. 
AWAKE, arife, behold thou haft, 
-^^ Thy life a leaf, thy breath a blaft , 
At night lay down prepar'd to hflve 
Thy fieep, thy death, thy bed, thy grave. 
T" R D if thou lengthen out my days, 
-*— ^ Then let my heart lo fixed be. 



THE NEW ENGLAND PRIMER— ITTT. 



887 



Thai I may lengthen out thy praise, 
And never lurn alide from thee. 

So in my end I fhall rejoice, 
Jn thy falvation joyful be ; 
My foul fliall say with loud glad voice, 
JEHOVAH who is hke to thee ? 

Who takell the lambs into thy arms, 
And gently leadefl thofe with young, 
Who faveil children from all harms, 
Lord, I will praife ihee with my fong. 

And wiieu my da)'^s on earth Ihali end, 
And I go herice and be here no more, 
Gi/e me eternity to fpend, 
My G O D to praife forever more. 
Another. 
Good children mufl, 
Fear God all day, Lo\e Chrift alway, 
Parents obey, In fecret pray, 

No falfe thing fay. Mind little play, 
By no (in ftray. Make no delay, 

In doing good. 
Another. 
T In the burying place may feo 
-■- Graves fhorter there than L 
From death's arreft no age is tree 

Young children too mufl die. 
My God may fuch an awful fight. 



1 he Sum of the ten Commandments. 

WITH all thy foul love God above, 
And as thyfelf thy neighbour love. 
Advice to Youth. Eccle. xii. 
TVrOW in the heat of youthful blood, 
-'-^ Remember your Creator God ; 
Behold the months come hafl'ning on. 
When you fhall fay, My joys are gone- 

Behold the aged finner goes 
Laden with guilt and heavy woes, 
Down to the regions of the dead. 
With endlefs curfes on his head. 

The dull returns to dufl again, 
The foul in agonies of pain, 
Afcends to God not there to dwell, 
But hears her doom and finks to hell. 
Eternal King I fear thy name. 
Teach me to know how frail I am, 
And when my foul muft hence remove. 
Give me a manfion in thy love. 
Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth. 

C^ HILDREN your great Creator fear, 
■^ To him your homage pay, 
While vain employments fire your blood, 

And lead your thought,"? aflray. 
The due remembrance of his name 
Your first regard requires ; 



Awakening be to me ! 
Oh ' that by early grace I might 
For death prepared be. 
Another. 
]\[0 W I lay me down to take my Jlcep, 

I pray the Lord my foul to keep, 
If Ifhouid die before I wake, 
I pray the Lord my foul to take. 

Another. 

tplrfi in the morning when thou dofl awake, 

To God for his grace thy petition make. 

Some heavcniy petition ufe daily to fay. 

That the God of heaven may bhfs thee alway. 

Duty to God and our neighbour. 

LOVE God with all your foul & ftrength, 
With all your heart and mind ; 
And love your neighbour as yourfelf. 

Be faithful, jufl and kind. 
Deal with another as you'd have 

Another deal with you : 
What you're unwilling to receive, 
Be lure you never do. 

Our Saviour^s Golden Rule. 

BE you to others kind and true, 
As you'd have others be to you ; 
And neither do nor fay to men, 

Whate'er you would not take again. 



Till your breaft glows with facred love, 

indulge no meaner fires. 
Secure his favour, and be wife. 

Before thefe cheerlefs days, 
vVhen age comes on, when mirth's no more 

And health and ftrength decays. 

Some pi'oper Names o/" M B N and Women, 
to teach Children to fpell their own. 



Men's Names 

A Dam, Abel, 
Abraham, 
Amos, Aaron, 
Abijah, Andrew, 
Alexander, Anthony, 
Bartholomew, 
Benjamin, Barnabas, 
Benoni, Barzillai, 
Caleb, Caefar, 
Charles, Christopher, 
Clement, Cornelius, 
David, Daniel, 
Ephraim, Edward, 
Edmund, Ebenezer, 
Elijah, Eliphalet, 
Elifha, Eleazer, 
Elihn, Ezekiel, 



Elias, Elizur, 
Frederick, Francis, 
Gilbert, Giles, 
George, Gamalial, 
Gideon, Gerfhom, 
Heman, Heitry, 
Hezekiah, Hugh, 
John, Jonas, Ifaac, 
Jacob, Jared, Job, 
James, Jonathan, 
Ifrael, Jofeph, 
Jeremiah, Jofhua, 
Jofiah, Jedediah. 
Jabez, Joel, Judah, 
Lazarus, Luke, 
Mathew, Michael, 
Mofes, Malachi, 
Nathaniel, Nathan, 



888 



THE NEW ENGLAND PRIMER.— 1777. 



Nicholas, Noadiah, 
Nehemiah. Noah, 
Obadiah, Ozias. 
Paul, Peter, Philip, 
Phincas, Peletiah, 
Ralph, Richard, 
Samuel, Sampfon, 
Stephen, Solomon, 
Seih, Simeon, Saul, 



Shcm, Shubal, 
Timothy, Tnonias, 
Tiius, Theophilus, 
Uriah, Uzzah, 
Walter, William, 
Xerxes, Xenophon, 
jZachariah, Zebdiel 
Zedekiah, Zadook, 
Zebulon, Zebediah, 



WomerCs Names. 



\ Bigail, Anne, 
-^^ Alice, Anna, 
Bethiah, Bridget, 
Cloe, Charity, 
Deborah, Dorothy, 
Dorcas, Dinah, 
Damaris, 

Elizabeth, Efther, 
Eunice, Eleanor, 
Frances, Flora, 
Grare, Gillet, 
Hannah, Huldah, 
Hepzibah, 
Henrietta, Hagar.' 
Joanna, Jane, 
Jamima, Ifabel, 



Judith, Jennet, 
Katharine, Katura, 
Kezia, Lydia, 
Lucretia, Lucy, 
Louis, Lettice, 
Mary, Margaret, 
Martha, Mehitable, 
Marcy, Me rial. 
Patience. Phvlis, 
Phebe, PrifciUa, 
Rachel, Rebecca, 
Ruth, Rhode, Rofo. 
Sarah, Sufanna, 
Tabitha, Tamefin, 
Urfula, 
Zipporah, Zibiah. 



Home few days before his death, he ivrote the 
following Advice to his Children. 

GIVE ear my children to my words 
Whom God hath dearly bought. 
Lay up his laws within your heart, 

and print them in your thoughts. 
I leave you here a little book 

for you to look upon. 
That you may fee your father's face 

when he is dead and gone : 
Who for the hope of heaveidy things 

While he did here remam, 
Gave over all his golden years 

to prifon and to pain. 
Where I, among my iron bands, 

iucloi'ed in the dark, 
Not many days before my death, 

1 did compofe this work : 
And for example to your youth, 

to whom I wilh all good, 
I fend you here God"s perfect truth, 

and feal ii with my blood. 
To you my heirs of earthly things : 

which i do leave behind. 
That you may read and underftand 

and keep it in your mind. 
That as vou have been heirs of that 




MR. JohnRogers, minifter of the 
gofpel in London, was the firil mar- 
tyr in Queen Mary's reign, and was 
burnt at Smithfield, February 14, 1554. — His 
wife with nine small children, and one at 
her breast following him to the (lake ; with 
which forrowful fight he wps not in the 
lead daunted, but with wonderful patience 
died courageoufly for the gofpel of J s s u » 
GaaisT. 



that once fhall wear away. 
You alfo may poflefs that part, 

which never lliall decay. 
Kepp always God before your eyes, 

with all your whole intent, 
Commit no fm in any wife, 

keep his commandment. 
Abhor that arrant whore of R o m K , 

and ail her blafphemies. 
And drink not of her curfed cup, 

obey not her decrees. 
Give honor to your mother dear, 

remember well her pain. 
And recompence her in her age, 

with the like love again. 
Be always ready for her help, 

and let her not decay. 
Remember well your father all, 

who would have been your flay 
Give of your portion to the poor, 

as riches do arife. 
And from the needy naked foul, 

turn not away your eyes : 
For he that doth not hear the cry 

of thofe that ftand in need, 
Shall cry himfelf and not be heard, 

when he does hope to fpeed. 



THE NEW ENGLAND PRIMER.— 1777. 



389 



If GOD hath given yoii mcreafe, 

and blell'ed well >our liort;. 
Remember you are put in truil, 

and (hould relieve the poor. 
Beware of foul and filthy lull, 

let fuch things have no place, 
Keep clean your veflels in the LORD, 

that he may you embrace. 
Ye are the temples of the LORD, 

for you are dearly bought, 
And they that do defile the fame, 

fnall iurely come to nought. 
Be never proud by any means, 

build not your houfe too high, 
But always have before your eyos, 

that you are born to die. 
Defraud not him that hired is, 

your labour to fuitain, 
But pay him dill without delay, 

his wages for his pain. 
And as you would that other men 

againll you fhould proceed. 
Do you the fame to them agam, 

when they do fland in need." 
Impart your poition to the poor, 

ia money and in meat 



a..d you enjoy the land, 
I do befeech the living LORD, 

to hold you in his hand. 
Though here my body be adjudg'd 

in flaming fire to fry, 
My foul I trull;, will Itraight afceud 

to live with GOD on high. 
What though this carcafe Imart awhile 

what though this life decay. 
My foul 1 hope will be with GOD, 

and live with him for aye. 
I know I am a fuiner born, 

from the original, 
And that I do delerve to die 

by my fore-father's fall : 
But by our Saviour's precious blood, 

vfhich on the crofs was i'pilt, 
Who freely olTer'd up his lite, 

to fave our fouls from guilt ; 
I hope redemption I fliall have, 

and all who in him truft. 
When I iTiall fee him face to face, 

and live among the jult 
Why then Ihould I fear death's grim look 

fmce CHRIST for mo did die', 
For King and C(Bfar, rich and poor, 

the force of death mult try 



And fend the feeble fainting foid, 

of that which you do eat. 
Aflc counfel always of the wife, 

give ear unto the end. 
And ne'er refufe the fweet rebuke 

of him that is thy friend. 
Be always thankful to the LORD, 

with prayer and with praile, 
Begging of him to blefs your work, 

and to direct your ways. 
Seek firft, I fay, the living GOD, 

and always him adore, 
And then be lure that he will blefs, 

your bafket and your (lore. 
And I befeech Almighty GOD, 

replenifh you with grace, 
That I may meet you in the heavens. 

and fee you face to face. 
And though the fire my body burns, 

contrary to my kind, 
That I cannot enjoy your love 

according to my mind : 
Yet I do hope that when the heavens 

fhall vanifh like a fcrol!, 
I fhall fee you in perfect fhape, 

in body and in foul. 
And that I may enjoy your lore, 



When I am chained to the flake, 

and fagots girt me round, 
Then pray tlie LORD my foul in heaven 

may be with glory crown'd. 
Come welcome death the end of fears, 

I am prepar'd to die : 
Thofe earthly flames will fend my foul 

up to the Lord on high. 
Farewell my children to the world, 

where you mult yet remain ; 
The LORD of hoils be your defence, 

'till we do meet again. 
Farewell my true and loving wife, 

my children and my friends, 
I hope in heaven to fee you all, 

when all things have their end. 
If you go on to ferve the LORD, 

as you have now begun, 
You (hall walk fafely all your days, 

until your life be done. 
GOD grant you fo to end your days, 

as he (hall think it bell, 
That I may meet you in the heavens, 

where 1 do hope to reft. 

|r\UR days begin with trouble here, 
"-^ our life is Init a (pan. 



390 



THE NEW ENGLAND PRIMER.— 1777. 



And cruel death is always near, 

fo frail a thing is man. 
Then fow the feeds of grace whilft young, 

that when thou com'ft to die, 
Thou may'fl fing forth that triumph fong, 

Death where's thy victory. 

Choice Sentences. 

1. PrayIng will make us leave finning, 
or finning will make us leave praying. 

2. Our weaknefs and inabilities break 
not the bond of our duties. 

3. What we are afraid to fpeak before 
men, we Ihould be afraid to think before 
OOP. 

Learn the fe four lines by heart. 

HAVE communion with few, 
Be intimate with ONE, 
Deal juflly with all, 
Speak evil of none. 

A G U R' s Prayer. 

REMOVE far from me vanities and 
lies ; give me neither poverty nor 
riches ; feed me with food convenient for 
me : left I be full and deny thee, and fay, 
Who is the Lord ■; Or left I be poor and 
fteal and take the name of my GOD in vain. 



A. There is but ONE only, the living and 
true GOD. 

Q. 6. How many persons are there in the 
God'head 1 

A. There are three perfons in the God- 
head, the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
Ghoft, and thefe three are one GOD, the 
fame in fubftance, equal in power and glory. 

Q. 7. What are the decrees of God 1 

A. The decrees of God are his eternal 
purpofe, according to the counfel ot his own 
will, whereby for his own glory he hath 
fore-ordained whatfoever comes to ])afs. 

Q. 8. How doth God execute his decrees ? 

A. (xod executeth his decrees in the 
works of creation and providence. 

Q. 9. What is the work of creation ? 

A. The work of creation is God's making 
all things of nothing by the word of his pow- 
er, in the fpace of fix days,and all very good 

Q. 10. How did God create man 1 

A . God created man male & female after 
his own image, in knowledge, righteoufnefs 
and holinefs,with dominion over the creatures 

Q. 11. What are God's works of providence? 

A. God's works of providence are his moft 
holy,wife and powerful,preferving &• govern- 



.ff^^ggi^^ ^^p^^ ^ ^f igjs ^jj^wj 




The Shorter 

CATECHISM, 

Agreed upon by the Reverend AiTembly of 
Divines at Wefiminfter. 

Oueft "H^*"^ ^ "^ ^^ ^^^ chief end of man ? 
Anf Man's chief end is to 
glorify God and enjoy hirn forever. 

Q. 2, What rule hath God given to di- 
rect us how we may glorify and enjoy him ? 

A. The word of God which is contained 
in the fcriptures of the old and new tefta- 
ment is the only rule to direct us how we 
may glorify God and enjoy him. 
Q.3. What do the fcriptures principally teach? 

A. The fcriptures principally teach what 
man is to believe concerning God, and what 
duty God requireth of man. 

Q. 4. What is God? 

A. God is a fpirit, infinite, eternal, and 
unchangeable, in his being, wifdom, power, 
holinefs, juftice, goodnefs and truth 

Q. 5. Are there more Gods than one .«' 



ing all his creatures and all their actions. 

Q. 12. What fpecial act of providence 
did God exercife towards man in the eftate 
wherein he was created ? 

A. When God had created man, he en- 
tered into a covenant of life with him upon 
condition of perfect obedience, forbidding 
him to eat of the tree of knowledge of good 
and evil, upon pain of death. 

Q. 13. Did our fir ft parents continue in 
the eftate wherein they were created ? 

A. Our firft parents being left to the freedom 
-)f their own will, fell from the eftate wherein 
they were created, by finning agaiuft God. 

Q. 14. What tsfin? 

A. Sin is any want of conformity unto, 
or franfgreflion of the law of God. 

Q. 15. What was the fin whereby our firf). 
parents fell from the eftate wherein they were 
created ? 

A. The fin whereby our firft parents fell 
from the eftate wherein thev were created, 
was their eating the forbidden fruit. 

Q. 16, Did all mankind fall in Adam's 
firfl transgrejfion ? 

A. The covenant being made with Adorn, 
not only for hirafelf, but for his polterity, 



THE NEW ENGLAND PRIMKB— 1777. 



891 



all mankind defcendinf^from him by ordina- 
ry generation, linned in him, and fell wi;h 
him in his tirft tranigreilion. 

Q. 17. Into what ejiate did the fall bring 
mankir.d 1 

A. The fall brought mankind into an es- 
tate of fin and mifery. 

Q. 18. Wherein conjifts the finfulnefs oj 
that ejiate whereinto man fell ? 

A. The finfulnefs of that efiate whereinto 
man fell, confifts in the guilt of Adam's firft 
fm, the wantof originalrighteousnefs,& the 
corruption of his whole naiure,which is com- 
monly called original fin, together with all 
actual tranlgrefiions which proceed from it. 

Q. 19. What IS the mifery of that efiate 
whereinto man Jell ? 

A. All mankind by the fall loft commu- 
nion with God, are under his wrath «fe curfe, 
and fo made liable to the miferies in this life, 
to death itfelf, & to the pains of hell forever. 

Q. 20. Did God leave all mankind to per- 
! (h in the fiate of fm and mifery ? 

A.. God having out of his mere good 
pleafure from all eternity elected fome to 
everlafting life, did enter into a cove- 

nt ef grace, to deliver them out of a liate 



A. Chrift executeth the office of a prielt in 
his once offering up himfelf a facrifice to fa- 
tisfy divine justice, and reconcile us to God, 
and in making continual interceflion for us. 

Q. 26. How doth Chriji execute the ojice 
of a king ? 

A. Chrift executeth the office of a king 
in fubduing us to himfelf, in ruling and de- 
fending us, and in reftraining and conquer- 
ing all his and our enemies. 
0,27 Wherein did Chriff s humiliation conf ft? 

A. Chrift's humiliation confifted in his 
being born and that in a low condition, made 
under the law, undergoing the miferies of 
this life, the wrath of God, and the curfed 
death of the crofs, in being buried and con- 
tinuing i*der the power of death for a time. 

Q. 28. Wherein confifts Chriff s exaltation? 

A Chrift's exaltation confilteth in his ri- 
fing again from the dead on the third day, 
in afcending up into heaven, and fitting at 
the right hand of God the Father, and in 
coming to judge the world at the last day. 

Q. 29. How are we made partakers of the 
redemption purchased by Chrift ? 

A. We are made partakers of the redemp- 
tion purchafed by Chrift by the effectual ap- 



of fin and mifery, and to bring them into a 
ftale of falvation by a Redeemer. 

Q. 21 . Who is the Redeemer of God's elect? 

A. The only Redeemer of God's elect, is 
the Lord Jefus Chrift, who being the eternal 
Son of God, became man, and fo was, and 
continues to be God and man. in two dif- 
tincl natures, and one perfon forever. 

Q. 22. How did ChriJI being the Son of 
God become man ? 

A . Chrift the Son of God became man by 
taking to himfelf a true body and a refona- 
ble foul, being conceived by the power of 
the Holy Ghoft, in the womb of the virgin 
Mary, and born of her, and yet without fin. 

Q. 23. What offices doth ^hrlfl execute 
as our Redeemer ? 

^.Chrift as our Redeemer executes the of- 
fice of a prophet, of a pr left, & of a king, both 
in his ellate of humiliation and exaltation. 

Q. 24. How doth Chrifi execute the office 
of a prophet ? 

A. Chrift executeth the office of a pro- 
phet in revealing to us by his word and fpi- 
rit, the will of God for our falvation. 

Q. 25. How doth Chrift execute the office 
of a priefi ? 



plication of it to us by his holy Spirit. 

Q. 30. How doth the Spirit apply to us 
the redemption purchafed by Chrifi ? 

A. The Spirit applieth to us the redemp- 
tion purchafed by Chrift, by working faith 
in us, and thereby uniting us to Chrift in 
our eflectual calling. 

Q. 31. What is effectual calling ? 

A. Effectual calling is the work of God's 
Spirit, whereby convincing us of our fin and 
mifery, enlightening our minds in the kucw- 
ledge of Chrift, and renewing our wills, he 
do'ih perfuade and enable us to embrace Je- 
fus Chrift, freely offered to us in the gofpel. 

Q. 32. What benefits do they that are ef- 
fectually called partake of in this life ? 

A. They that are effectually called do in 
this life partake of juftification, adoption, 
and fanctification, and the feveral benefits 
which in this life do either accompany or 
flow from them. 

Q. 33. What ts juflif cation? 

A. Juftification is an act of God's free 
trrace, wherein he pardoneth all our fins, 
and accepteth us as righteous in his fight, 
only for the righteoufnefs of Chrift imputed 
to us, and received by faith alone. 



392 



THE NEW ENGLAND PRIMER.— 1777. 



Q. 34. What is adoption 1 

A. Adoption is an act of God's free grace, 
whereby we are received into the number, 
and have a right to all the privileges of the 
fons of God. 

Q. 35. What is fanctijication ? 

A. Sanctiticatioii is the work of God's 
free grace, whereby we are renewed in the 
whole man, after the image of God, and are 
enabled more and more to die unto lin, and 
live unto righteoufnefs. 

Q. 36. What are the henefits which in this 
life do accompany or fiow from jujlijication^ 
adoption and fanctif cation ? 

A. The benefits which in this life do ac- 
company or flow from juliifi cation, adoption 
and fanctification, are aflurance^f God's 
love, peace of confceince, joy in t'ne holy 
Ghoft, increase of grace, and perfeverance 
therein to the end. 

Q. 37. What henefits do believers receive 
from Chrifl at their death ? 

A. The fouls of believers are at their 
death made perfect in holinefs, and do im- 
mediately pafs into glory, and their bodies 
being (till united to Chrifl do reli in theii 
graves 'till the refurrection. 



commandments ? 

A. The preface to the ten command- 
ments is in thefe words, / am the Lord thy 
God which have brought thee uut of the land 
of Egypt, and out of the houfe of bondage. 

Q. 44. What doth the preface to the ten 
commandments teach us ? 

A. The preface to the ten commandments 
tcacheth us, that becaufe God is the Lord, and 
our God and Redeemer, therefore we are 
bound to keep all his commandments. 

Q. 45. Which is the first commandment ? 

A. The firft commandment is, Thou f halt 
have no other Gods before me. 

Q. 46 What IS required in the firft com- 
mandment ' 

A. The firft commandment requireth us 
to know and acknowledge God, to be the 
only true God, and our God, and to wor- 
fhip and glorify hin) accordingly. 

Q. 47. What is forbidden in the first com- 
mandment 1 

A. The firfl commandment forbiddetU 
the denying or not worfhipping and glorify- 
ing the true God, as God, and our God, and 
the giving that worfhip and glory to any 
otner which is due to him alone. 



Q. 38. What benefits do believers receive 
from Chrifl at the resurrection ? 

A. At the refurrection believers being 
raifed up to glory, shall be openly acknow- 
ledged and acquitted in the day of judg- 
ment, and made perfectl)'' blelTed in the full 
enjoyment of God to all eternity. 

Q. 39. What is the duty which God re- 
hires of man 1 

A. The duty which God lequires of man, 
is obedience to his revealed will. 

Q. 40. What did God at firft reveal to 
man for the rule of his obedience ? 

A. The rule which God at firft revealed to 
man for his obedience was the moral law. 

Q. 41. Where is the moral law fammarily 
comprehended ? 

A . The moral law is funimarily compre- 
hended in the ten commandments. 

Q. 42. What is the fum of the ten com- 
mandments ? 

A. The fum of the ten commandments 
is, to love the Lord our God with all our 
heart, with all out foul, with all our 
flrength, and with all our mind, and our 
neighbour as ourfelves. 

Q. 45*. Wltat is the preface to the ten 



Q. 48. What are we efpecially taught by 
thefe words (before me) in the firfl command- 
ment ? 

A. Thefe words {before me) in the firft 
commandment, teach us, that God who feeth 
all tilings, taketh notice of and is much dif- 
pleafed with the fin of having any other God. 

Q. 49. Which is the fecond commandment ? 

A. The fecond commandment is, Thou 
fhalt not make ujito thee any graven image, or 
the likeness of any thing that is in heanen a- 
bove, or that is tn the earth beneath, or that 
is in the water under the earth ; thou fJialt not 
how down thy f elf to them nor serve them, for 
I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, vifitmg 
the iniquities ^ the fathers upon the children, 
unto the third and fourth generation of them 
that hate me and fhewing mercy unto thoufands 
of them that love me (Sj- keep my commandments. 

Q. 50. What is required in the fecond 
commandment 1 

A. The fecond commandment requireth 
the receiving, obferving,& keeping pure and 
entire all fuch religious worfhip and ordi.ian- 
ces, as God hath appointed in his word. 

Q. 51. What is forbidden in the fecond 
commandment ? 



THE NEW ENGLAND PRIMER.— 1777. 



893 



A. Tlie fecond commandment forbiddeth 
the worfliipping of God by iniitge*? or any 
other way not appointed in his word. 

Q. 52. What are the reafons annexed to 
the fecond commandment ? 

A. The reafons annexed to the fecond 
commandment, are God's fovereignty over 
us, his propriety in us, and the zeal he hath 
to his own worlliip. 

0. 53. Which is the third commandment ? 

A. The third commandment is, Thou 
Jhalt not take the name of the Lord thy God 
in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guilt- 
lefs, that taketh his name in vain. 

Q. 54. What is required in the third 
commanilment 1 

A. The third commandment requireth the 
holy and reverent ufe of God's names, titles, 
attributes, ordinances, word and works. 

Q. 55. What is forbidden in the third 
commandyient ? 

A. The third commandment forbiddeth 
all profaning or abufing of any thing 
whereby God maketh himlelf known. 

Q. 56. What a.v the reafon annexed to the 
third commandment ' 



A. From the beginning of the world, to 
the refurrection of Chrift, God appointed 
the feventh day of the week to be the 
weekly fabbath, and the firfl day of the 
week ever fmce to continue to the end of 
the world, which is the Chriflian Sabbath. 

Q. 60. How is the fabbath to be fanctified ? 

A. The fabbath is to be fanctified by an 
holy refting all that day, even from fuch 
worldly employments and recreations as are 
lawful on other days, and fpeuding the whole 
time in public and private exercifes of God's 
worfhip, except fo miicli as is to be taken 
up in the works of necellUy and mercy. 

Q. 61. What is forbidden in the fourth 
commandment ? 

A. Tne fourth commandment forbiddeth, 
the orniiiion or carelefs performance of the 
duties reqirired, and the profaning the day by 
idlenefs,or doing that which is in itfolf finful, 
or by unnecedary thoughts, woids or works, 
about worldly employments or recreations. 

Q, 62. What are the reafons annexed to 
the fourth commavdrnrnt 1 

A. The reafons annexed to the fourth com- 
mandment, are God's allowing us fix days of 
the week for our own emnloyment, his chal- 



A. The reafon annexed to the third com- 
mandment is. That however the breakers of 
this commandment may eicape punifhment 
from men, yet the Lord our God will not 
fuffer them to efcape his righteous judgment. 

Q. 57. Which is the fourth commandment ? 
A. The fourth commandment is. Remember 
the fabbath day to keep it holy, fix days fhalt 
thou labor and do all thy work, but the fe- 
venth day is the fabbath of the Lord thy God, 
in it thou fhalt not do any work, thou nor thy 
[on, nor thy daughter, thy mun-fervant, nor 
thy maid fervant, nor thy cattle, nor the 
flranger that is within thy gates, for in fx 
days the Lord made heaven and earth, the 
fea and all that in them is, and refted the 
feventh day, wherefore the Lord blejfed the 
fabbath day and hallowed it. 

Q. 58. What is required in the fourth 
commandment ? 

A. The fourth commandment requireth, 
the keeping holy to God fuch fet times as 
he hath appointed in his word, expreflly one 
whole day in leven to be an holy Sabbath 
to himfelf. 

Q. 59. Which day of the feven hath God 
appointed to be the weekly fabbath ? 



lenging a special propriety in the feventh.his 
own example, & his bleding the fabbath day. 

Q. 63. Which is the ffth commandment? 

A. The fifth commandment is, Honor thy 
fatlier an d thy mother, that thy days may be long 
upon theland which the Lord thy Godg-ivelhthee. 

Q. 64. What is required in the ffth com- 
mandment ? 

A. The fifth commandment requireth the 
preferving the honor, and performing the 
duties belonging to every one in their feve- 
ral places and relations, as fuperiurs, infe- 
riors, or equals. 

Q. 65 What is forbidden in the fifth 
commandment ? 

^.The fifth commandment forbiddeth the 
neglecting of, or doing any thingagainst the 
honour and duty which belongeth to every 
one in their feveral places and relations. 

Q 66. What is the reason annexed to ths. 
fifth commandment ? 

A. The reason annexed to the fifth con\- 
mandment is a promife of long life and pro(-. 
perity, (as far as it ihall ferve for God's glo- 
ry and their own good) to all fuch as keep 
this commandment. 

Q. 67. Which is the fixth commandment t 



THE NEW ENGLAND PRIMER.— 1777. 



A. The fixth commandment is, Thou 
fhalt not kill. 

Q. 68. What is required in thejixth com- 
mandment ? 

A. The lixth commandment requireth all 
lawful endeavors to preferve our own life, 
and the life of others. 

Q. 69. What is forbidden in thejixth com- 
mandment ? 

A. The fixth commandment forbiddeth 
the taking away of our own life, or the life of 
our neighbour unjuftly, and whatfoevcr ten- 
deth thereunto. 

Q. 70. Which is thefeventh commandment ? 

A. The feventh commandment is, Thou 
Pialt not commit adultery. 

Q. 71. What is required in the feventh 
commandment ? 

A. The feventh commandment requireth 
the prefervation of our own and our neigh- 
bor's chastity, in heart, speech & behaviour. 

Q. 72. What is forbidden in the feventh 
commandment ? 

A. The feventh commandment forbiddeth 
all unchafte thoughts, words and actions. 

Q. 73. Which is the eighth commandment ? 

A. The eighth commandment is, Thou 



A. The tenth commandment is, Thoufhalt 
not covei thy neighbour's houfe, thou fhalt not 
covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his man-fer- 
vant, nor his maid-fcrvant, nor his ox, nor his 
afs, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's. 

Q. 80. What IS required in the tenth com- 
mandment ? 

A. The tenth commandment requireth 
full contentment with our own condition, 
with a right and charitable frame of fpirit 
towards our neighbour, and all that is his. 

y. 81. What IS forbidden in the tenth 
commandment ? 

A. The tenth commandment forbiddeth 
all difcontentment with our own eflate, en- 
vying or grieving at the good of our neigh- 
bour, and all inordinate motions and affec- 
tions to any thing that is his. 

Q. 82f. Is any man able perfectly to keep 
the commandments of God ? 

A. No mere man fmce the fall is \\<\(\ 
in this life perfectly to keep the comn iui- 
ments of God, but daily doth break th in i" 
thought, word and deed. 

Q. 83. Are all tranfgrejfwns cf the law 
equally heinous ? 

A. Some fins in therafelvcs, and by rea- 



Pialt not Jleal. 

Q. 74. What is required in the eighth 
commandment ? 

A. The eighth commandment requireth 
the lawful procuring &i furthering tho wealth 
and outward eftate of ourfelves and others. 

Q. 75. What IS forbidden m the eighth 
commandment ^ 

A. The eighth commandment forbiddeth 
whatfoever doth, or may unjuftly hinder our 
own or our neighbour's wealth or outward 
eflate 

Q. 76. Which is the ninth commandment ? 

A. The ninth commandment is. Thouflialt 
not bear false witnefs againjt thy neighbour. 

Q. 77 What is required in the ninth com- 
mandment ? 

A. The ninth commandment requireth the 
maintaining and promoting of truth between 
man &l man, & of our own & our neighbor's 
good name, efpecially in wimefs bearing. 

Q. 78. What IS forbidden in the ninth 
commaridment ? 

A. The ninth commandment forbiddeth 
whatfoever is prejudicial to truth,or injurious 
to our own or our neighbor's good name. 

Q. 79. Which is the tenth commandment i 



fon of feveral aggravations, are more J' i:. 
ous in the fight of God than others. 

Q. 84. What doth every fn deferve 

A. Everyfindeferves God's wrath & no 
both in this life, and that which is to . ( .nc. 

Q. 85. What doth God remtireof us thai we 
mayefcape hiswrath andcurfe dueto usfjr iln? 

A. To efcape the wrath and curfe of (>•:.('. 
due to us for fin, God requireth of us f itt' u 
Jefus Chrift,repentance unto life,with the di- 
ligcntufeofall outward means whereby Chrift 
communicateth to us the benefits of redemp- 
tion. Q. 86. What is faith in Jefus Chrift ? 

A. Faith in Jefus Chrifi is a faving grace 
whereby we receive & reft upon him alone for 
falvation as he is offered to us in the gofpel. 

Q. 87. What is repentance unto life ? 

A. Repentance unto life is a faving grace, 
whereby a finner out of the true fenfe of his 
fin and apprehenfion of the mercy of God in 
Chrift, doth with grief and hatred of his fin 
turn from it unto God, with full purpofe of 
and endeavours after new obedience. 

Q. 88. What are the outioard and ordi- 
nary means whereby Chrifi communicateth to^ 
us the benefits of redemption ? 

A . The outward and ordinary means where- j 



THE NEW ENGLAND PRIMER— 1777. 



by Chriftcommunicateth to us the benefits of 
redemption, are his ordinances, elpecially the 
word, I'acraments and prayer ; all which are 
made effectual to the elect for falvation. 

Q. 89. How is the word made effectual to 
falvation ? 

A. The fpirit of God maketh the reading, 
but efpccially the preaching of the word an 
effectual means of convincing and converting 
linners, and of building them up in holinefs 
and comfort, through faith unto falvation. 

Q. 90. How is the word to he read and 
heard that it may become effectual to falvation? 

A. That the word may become effectual 
to falvation, we must attend thereimto with 
diligence, preparation and prayer, receive it 
with faith and love, lay it up in our hearts, 
and practice it in our lives. 

Q. 91 How do thejacraments become effec- 
tual means of falvation ? 

A. Tbe facraments become effectud means 
of falvation not from any virtue in them or 
in him that doth admimlter them^ but only by 
iho bleffmg of Chrift, and the working of the 
Spirit in them that by faith receive them. 

Q. 92. What IS a facrament ? 

A. A facrament is an holy ordinance in- 



and blood, with all his benefits, to their fpi- 
ritual nourifhment and growth in grace. 

Q. 97. What is required in the worthy re- 
ceiving the Lord" s /upper ? 

A. It is required of them that would wor- 
thily partake of the Lord's fupper, that they 
examine themfcives of their knowledge to 
difcern the Lord's body, of their faith to feed 
upon him, of their repentance, love and new 
obedience, left coming unworthily, they 
eat and drink judgment to themfelves. 

Q. 98. What is prayer ? 

A. Prayer is avi offering up of our defires 
to God for things agreeable to his will.in the 
name of Chria, with confeffion of our fins, 
& thankful acknowledgment of his mercies. 

Q. 99. What rule hath God given for our 
direction in prayer 1 

A. The whole word of God is of ufe to di- 
rectusinprayerbutthefpecialruleof direction 
is that form of prayer which Chrift taught his 
difciples commonly called, TAe Lord's Prayer. 

Q.^ 100. What doth the preface of the 
Lord's prayer leach us ? 

A. The preface of the Lord's prayer which 
is Our Father which art in heaven, teacheth us, 
to draw near to God with all holy reverence 



ftituied by Chrift, wherein by fenfible figns, 
Chrift & the benefits of the new covenant are 
reprefented fcaled and applied to believers. 

Q. 93. What are the facraments of the 
New Teftament? 

A. The facraments of the New Tefta- 
ment are baptifm and the Lord's fupper. 

Q. 94. What is baptism ? 
A. Baptifmisafacraiwentwhereinthe wafli- 
ing of water in the name of the Father and 
of the Souanduf the IIolyGhoftjdothfignify 
and feal our ingrafting into Chrift and par- 
taking of the benefits of the covenant of 
grace, & our engagements to be the Lord's. 
Q. 95. To whom is baptism to be administered 1 
A. Baptifm is not to be adminiftered to any 
that are out of the vifible church, till they 
profefs their faith in Chrift, and obedience 
to him, but the infants of fuch as are mem- 
bers of the vifible church are to be baptized. 

Q. 96. What is the Lord' s fupper ? 

A. The Lord's fupper is a facrament, 
wherein by giving and receiving bread and 
wine according to Chrift's appointment, his 
death is fhewed forth, and the worthy recei- 
vers are not after a corporal and carnal man- 
ner, but by faith made partakers of his body 



and confidence, as children to a father, able 
and ready to help us, and that we fhould 
pray with and for others. 
Q. 1 01 . What do we pray for in the first petition ? 

A. In the firft petition, which is. Hallowed 
he thy name, we pray that God would enable 
us and others to glorify him in all that where- 
by he makes himfelf known, and that he 
would difpofe all things to his own glory. 

Q. 102. What do we pray for in the fe- 
cond petition ? 

A. In the fecond petition, which is, Thy 
kingdom come, we pray that fatan's kingdom 
may be deftroyed, the kingdom of |race 
maybe advanced, ourfelves and others bro't 
into It, and kept in it, and that the kingdom 
of glory may be haftened. 

Q. 103. What do toe pray for in the third 
petition ? 

A. In the third petition, which is, Thy will 
be done on earth as it is in heaven, we pray 
that God by his grace would make us able 
and willing to know, obey and I'ubmit to his 
will in all things, as the angels do in heaven. 

Q. 104. What do we pray for in the fourth 
petition 1 

A. In the fourth petition, which is, Give 



896 



THE NEW ENGLAND PRIMER.— 1777. 



iM this day cur daily bread, we pray, that of 
God's free gift we may receive a competent 
portion of the good things of this hfe, an-i 
enjoy his bleffing with them. 

Q,. 105. What do we pray for vn the fifth 
petiUon ? 

A. In the fifth petition, which is, Andfoi'- 
give us our debts as toe forgive our debtors, we 
pray that God for Chrift's fake, would freely 
pardon all our sins, which we are the rather 
encouraged to afk, because by his grace we 
are enabled from the heart to forgive others. 

Q,. 106. What do we pray for in the fixth 
petition ? 

A. In the fixth petition, which is. And 
lead us not into temptation, but deliver us 
from evil, we pray that God would either 
keep us from being tempted to fm, or fup- 
port and dehver us when we are tempted. 

Q,. 107. What doth the conclufion of the 
Lord's prayer teach us ? 

A. The conclufion of the Lord's prayer, 
which is. For thine is the kingdom, and the 
p^wer,and the glory, forever, AMEN,teach- 
eth us, to take our encouragement in prayer 
from God only, and in our prayers to praife 
him, afcribing kingdom, power and glory 



Q.. Are you then bom holy and righteous ? 

A. No, my firft father finned and I in him. 

Q.. Are you then born a finner ? 
A. I was conceived in fin, & born in iniquity. 

Q,. What is your birth fin ? 

A. Adam's fm imputed to me, and a cor- 
rupt nature dwelling in me. 

Q,. What is your corrujit nature ? 
A. My corrupt nature is empty of grace,bent 
unto fm, only unto fin, and that continually. 

a. What is fin ? 

A. Sin is a tranfgreffion of the law. 

Q,. How many commandments of the law 
be there ? A. Ten. 

Q.. What is the first commandment ? 
A. Thou fhalt have no other Gods before me. 
Q,. What is the meaning of this com mandmen t ? 

A. That we fhould worfliip the only true 
God, and no other befides him. 

Q,. What is the fecond commandment ? 

A. Thou fhalt not make to thyfelf any 
graven image, &c. 
Q.. What is the meaning of this commandmen t ^ 

A. That we fhould worfliip the only tr > 
God, with true worfhip, fuch as he hatL '•■ 
dained, not fuch as man haih invented. 

Q,. What is the third commandment ? 



to him, and in teflimony of our defire and 

afTurance to be heard, we fay, Amen. 

Blejfed are they that do his command^nents 

that they may have right to the tree of 

life, and may enter in through the gates 

into the city. Rev. xxii. 14. 

SPIRITUAL MILK 

FOR 

American BABES, 

Drawn out of the Breafls of both Tefiamenti 
for their Souls Nourifhment. 

By JOHN COTTON. 

Q "WMJ^HAT hath God done for you ? 

^ A. God hath made me, he keep- 

eth me, and he can fave me. 

a. What is God ? 

A. God is a Spirit of himfelf & for himfelf. 

Q,. How many Gods be there ? 

A. There is but one God in three Perfons, 
the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghofc 

Q,. How did God make you ? 

A. In my firfl parents holy and righteous. 



A. Thou fhalt not take the name 
Lord thy God in vain. 

Q,. What is meant by the name -.jf C'M • 

A. God himfelf & the good thirjg.s nf Go. i 
whereby he is known as a man by H ir wam^' 
and his attributes, worfliip, word uik: works. 

Q,. What is it not to take his name in 

A. To makeufe of God&- "he c-oodthu.y^ 
of God to his glory, and our ov/'. good, not 
vainly, not irreverently, not unprotiir-bl'.- 

Q,. Which is the fourth comiyiandment ? 

A. Remember that thou keep holy the 
fabbath day. 
Q,. What is the meaning of this commandment ? 

A. That we fhould reft from labor, and 
much more from play on the Lord's day, that 
we may draw nigh to God in holy duties. 

Q,. What is the fifth commandment ? 

A. Honor thy father and thy mother, that 
thy days may be long in the land which 
the Lord thy God giveth thee. 

d. What are meant by father and mother ? 

A. All our fuperiors whether in family, 
fchool. church and common wealth. 

Q,. What is the honor due unto them ? 

A. Reverence, obedience, and (when I 
am able) recompence. 



THE NEW ENGLAND PRIMER— 1777. 



397 



Q. What is the ftxth commandment? 

A Thou fhalt do no murder. 
Q.What is the meaning of this cummandmrnt? 

A. That we fhould not fhorten the life or 
health of ourfelves or others, butpreferve both 

Q. What is the feventh commandment ? 

A. Thou Ihah not commit adultery. 

Q. What is the fm here forbidden ? 

A. To defile ourfelves or others with un- 
clean hids. 

Q. What is the duty here commanded ? 

A. Chaitity to poffefs our veflels in holi- 
nefs and honor. 

Q. What is the eighth command?nent ? 

A. Thou fhalt not fleal. 

Q. What is the Jtealth here forbidden ? 

A. To take away another man's goods 
without his leave, or to fpend our own with- 
out benefit to ourfelves or others. 

Q. What is the duty here commanded? 

A. To get our goods honefUy, to keoi 
diein fafely, and fpend them thriftily. 

Q. What is the ninth com7nandinent? 

A. Thou fhalt not bear falfe witnefs a- 
gaiaft thy neighbour. 

Q What is the fin Iiere forbidden f 



A. The holy fcriptures of the prophets 
and apoRles, the old and new tettament, the 
law and gofpel. 

Q,. How doth the minifiry of the law bring 
you to\card Chrifl ? 

A. By bringing me to know my fin, and 
the wrath of God, again ft me for it. 

Q.. What are you hereby the nearer to 
Chrift? 

A. So I come to feel my curfed eflate 
and need of a Saviour. 

Q,. Hoio doth the minifry of the Gospel 
help you in this curfed eflate 7 

A. By humbhng me yet more, and then 
raifing me out of this eltate. 

Q. How doth the miniftry of the Gofpel 
humble you yet more? 

A. By revealing the grace of the Lord 
Jefus in dying to fave finners, and yet con- 
vincing me of my fin in not believing on 
him, and of my utter infufficiency to come 
to him, and fo I feel myself utterly loft. 

Q,. How doth the minijiry of the gospel raife 
you up out of this loft eflate to come to Chrift 1 

A. By teaching me the value and virtue of 
the death of Chrift, and the riches of his grace 
to lofl finners by revealing the proniife of 
grace to fuch, and by miniftring the Spirit of 



1 To lie Mfely, to think or fpeak uutru 
. >f ourfelves or others. 

^. What is tiif. duty here required 1 

A. Troth and taiiafnlnefs. 

Q. What is the tenth cfymmandment ? 

A. Thou fhalt not covjt, &c. 

Q. V/hat is the covciing here forbidden ? 

A. Lull .f'ter the things of other men, 
and want of cuiiioiiiment with our own. 

Q. Whether haje you kept all thefe com- 
mandments ? 

A. No, I and all men are finners. 

Q. IVJiat are the wages of fin ? 

A . Death and damnation. 

Q. How then look yon to befaved? 

A. Only by Jefus Chrifl,. 

Q. Who is Jefus Chria ? 
A.The eternal Son of God, who for onr fakes 
became man, that hemighi. redeem &fave us. 

Q. Hoxo doth Chifi redeem and fave us ? 

A. By his rigliteous life, and bitter death, 
U)d glorious refuirection to life again. 

Q. How do V!e come to have a part <Sf fellow- 
Jkip with Chrifl in his death df refurrection? 

A. By the power of his word and fpirit, 
which brings us to him, and keeps us in him. 

Q. What is the vkfrd ? 



grace to apply Chrifl, and his promife of 
grace unto myfelf, and to keep me in him. 
Q,. How doth the Spirit of grace apply Chrift ^ 
hispromiftgraceunto you and keep you in him? 
A. By begetting in me faith to receive him, 
prayer to call upon him, repentance to mourn 
after him, and new obedience to ferve him. 

a. What is faith? 

A. Faith is the grace of the Spirit, where- 
by I deny myfelf, and believe on Chrift for 
righteoufnefs and falvation. 

Q,. What is prayer ? 

A. It is calling upon God in the name 
of Chrift by the help of the Holy Ghoft, 
according to the will of God. 

Q,. What is repentance ? 

A. Repentance is a grace of the Spirit, 
whereby I loath my fins, and myfelf for them 
and confefs them before the Lord, and mourn 
after Chrift for the pardon of them, and for 
grace to ferve him in newnefs of life. 
Q,. What is the newnefs oflife,ornew obedience? 

A. Newnefs of life is a grace of the Spirit, 
whereby I forfake my former lust & vain com- 
pany, and walk before the Lord in the light 
of his word, and in the communion of faints. 

CI. Wiiat is the communion offaircta i 



THE NEW ENGLAND PRIMER.— 1777. 



A. It is the fellowfhip of the church in the 
bU'flings of the covenant of grace, and the 
feals thereof Q. J^^iot is the church 1 

A. It is a congregation of faints joined 
together in the bond of the covenant, to vvor- 
fliip the Lord, and to edify one another in all 
his holy ordinances. 

Q, What is the bond of the covenant by 
which the church is joined togethei ? 

A. It is the profeffion of that covenant 
which God has made vv^ith his faithful people, 
to be a God unto them, and to their feed. 

Q. What doth the Lord bind his people to 
in this covenant 7 

A. To give up themfelves & their feed firff 
to the Lord to be his people, cfethen to the el- 
ders & brethren of the church to fet QDrward 
the w^orfhipof God & their mutual edification. 

Q. How do they give up themfelves and their 
feed to the Lord 1 

A. By receiving thro' faith the Lord & his 
covenant to themfelves, &to their feed & ac- 
cordingly walking themfelves & training up 
their children in the ways of the covenant. 
Q.How do they give up themfelves and their 
feed to the elders and brethren of the church ? 

A. By confeffing of their fins, snd profef- 



dead, which was fraled vp fp you y,i baptism 7 

A. When Chrifl fhall come in his laft 
judgment, all that are in their graves fhall 
rife again, both the juft and unjuft. 

Q. What is the judgment, which is fealed 
up to yna in the Lord's supper 1 

A. At the laft day we ihall all appear be- 
fore the judgment feat of Chrift, to give an 
account of our works, and receive our re- 
ward according to them. 
Q. What is the reward that fhall then begiven7 

A. The righteous fhall go into life eter- 
nal, and the wicked fliall be caft into ever- 
laftina fire with the Devil and his angels. 



A Dialogue between CHRIST, Y outh, 
and the Devil. Youth. 

THofe days which God to me doth fend 
In pleafure I'm refolv'd to fpend ; 
Like as the birds in ih' lovely spring, 
Sit chirping on the bough, and fing ; 
Who ftraining forth thofe warbling notes, 
.Do make fweet mufic in their throats, 
r > I refolve in this my prime, 
In fports and plays to fpend my time. 
iSorrow and grief I'll put away. 
Such things agree not with my day: 



fion of their faith, and of their fubjection to 
the gofpel of Chrift ; and fo they and their 
feed are received into t.ie fellowfhip of the 
church and the feals thereof. • 

Q. What are the feals of the covenant now 
in the days of the gofpel ? 

A. Baptifm and the Lord's Supper. 

Q. What is done for you tn baptijm ? 

A. In baptifm the walhing with water . 
a fign and feal of my wafhing in the blood 
and fpirit of Chrift, and thereby of my in- 
grafting into Chrift, of the pardon and clean- 
ifing of my fins, of my raifing up out of afflic • 
lions, and alfo of my relurrection from tic 
dead at the laft day. 
Q. What is done for 7/ou in the Lord'sfuppn t 
A. In the Lord's fupper,the receiving of the 
bread broken and the wine poured out i, a fign 
and feal of my receiving the communion of 
the body of Chrift broken for me, and of his 
blood filed for me, and thereby of my growth 
in Chrift, and the pardon and healing of my 
fins, of the fellowfhip of ihe Spirit, of my 
ftrengthening and quickening in grace, and 
of my fitting together with Chrifi on h's 
throne of glory at the Jaft judsmeni. 

Q, What was the refui rection from the 



From clouds my morning ftiall be free ; 
And nought on earth fhall trouble me. 
I will embrace each fweet delight. 
This earth affords me day and night : 
Though parents grieve and me corrent, 
Yet I their counsel will reject. 
Devil. 
The refolution which you take, 
Sweet youth it doth me merry make. 
Iftiiou n)y counsel wilt embrace, 
And fhun the ways of truth and grace, 
And learn to lie, and curfe and swear. 
And be as proud as any are ; 
And with thy brothers wilt fall out, 
And lifters with vile language flout ; 
Yea, fight and fcratch, and alfo bite. 
Then in thee I will take delight. 
If thou wilt but be rul'd by me, 
I^n artift thou fhalt quickly be, 
In all my ways which lovely are, 
Ther'e few with thee who fhall compare. 
Thy parents always difobey ; 
Don't mind at all what they do fay : 
And alto pout and fullen be, 
And thou fhalt be a child for me. 
When others read, be thou at play, 
Think not on God, don't sigh nor pray 



THE NEW ENGLAND PRIMER.— 1777. 



Nor be thou fuch a filly fool, 
To mind thy book or go to fchool ; 
But play the truant ; fear not I 
Will ftraitway help you to a lie, 
Which will excufe thee from the fame, 
From being whipp'd and from all blame ; 
Come bow to me, uphold my crown, 
And I'll, thee raife to high renown. 

Youth. 
Thefe motions I will cleave unto, 
And let all other counsels go ; 
My heart againft my parents now, 
Shall harden'd be, and will not bow: 
I won't fubmit at all to them. 
But all good counsels will condemn, 
And what I hft that do will I, 
And ftubborn be continually. 

CHRIST. 
Wilt thou. O youth make fuch a choir*. 
And thus obey the devil's voice ! 
Curft finful ways wilt thou embrace. 
And hate the ways of truth and grace ? 
Wilt thou to me a rebel prove? 
And from thy parents quite remove 
Thy heart alfo? Then fhalt thou see, 
What will e'er long become of thee. 
Come, think on God, who did thee make, 



N^o more good days then fhould I have 
CHRIST. 
Wourft thou live long and good days fee 
Refrain from all iniquity : 
True good alone doth from me flow, 
It can't be had in things below. 
Are not my ways, O youth ! for thee, 
Then thou fhalt never happy be ; 
Nor ever fhall thy foul obtam, 
True good, whilit thou dolt here reraaia 

Youth. 
To thee, O Chrilt, I'll not adhere, 
What thou fpeak'st of does not appear 
Lovely to me I cannot find, 
'Tis good to fet or place my mind 
On ways whence many forrows Ipring 
And to the flefli fuch crofl'es bring, 
Don't trouble me, I mull fulfil, 
My flefhly mind, and have my will. 

CHRIST. 
Unto thyfelf then I'll thee leave, 
That Satan may tliee wholly have : 
Thy heart in fin fhall harden'd bo, 
And blinded in iniquity. 
And then in wrath I'll cut thee down, 
hike af the grafs and flowers mown ; 
And to thy woe thou fhalt efpy, 



And at his prefence dread and quake 
Remember him now in thy youth, 
And let thy foul take hold of truth: 
The Devil and his ways defy. 
Believe him not, he doth but lie : 
His ways feem fweet, but youth beware, 
He for thy foul hath laid a fnare. 
His fweet will into bitter turn, 
If in thofe ways thou ftill wilt run, 
Ho will thee into pieces tear. 
Like lions which moft hungry are. 
Gram me thy heart, thy folly leave. 
And from this lion I'll thee fave ; 
And thon Ihalt have fweet joy from me. 
Which fliall laft to eternity. 
Youth. 
My neart fhall cheer me in my youth, 
I'll have my frolicks in good truth. 
What e'er feems lovely in mine eye, 
Myfelf I cannot it deny, 
in my own ways I ftill will walk, 
And take delight among young folk. 
Who fpend their days in joy and mirth, 
Nothing like that I'm fure on earth : 
Thy ways, O Chrift ! are not for me, 
They with my age do not agree. 
If I unto thy laws fhould cleave, 



Childhood and youth are vanity ; 
For all fuch things I'll make thee know 
To judgment thou fhall come alfo. 
In hell at laft thy foul fhall burn, 
When thou thy finful race haft run. 
Confider this, think on thy end 
Left God do thee in pieces rend. 
Youth. 
Amazed, Lord ! I now begin, 

help me and I'll leave my fin: 

1 tremble, and do greatly fear, 
To think upon what I do hear. 
Lord ! I religious now will be, 
And I'll from Satan turn to thee. 

D^vil. 
Nay, foolifli youth, don't change thy mind. 
Unto fuch thoughts be not incjin'd. 
Come, cheer up thy heart, roufe up, be glad. 
There is no hell ; why art thou fad ? 
Eat, driiik, be merry with thy friend, 
For when thou dieft, that's thy laft end. 
Youth. 
Such thoughts as thefe I can't receive. 
Becaufe God's word I do believe ; 
None fhall in this deftroy my faith, 
Nor do I mind what Satan faith. 

Devil. 



400 



THE NEW ENGLAND PRIMER.— ITT?. 



Although to thee herein I yield, 
Yet e'er long I fhall win the field. 
That there's a heaven I can't deny, 
Yea, and a hell of mifery : 
That heaven is a lovely place 
I can't deny ; 'tis a clear cafe ; 
And eafy 'tis for to come there, 
Therefore take thou no further care, 
All human laws do thou obferve, 
And from old cuftoms never fwerve; 
Do not oppofe what great men fay. 
An I thou fhalt never go aftray. 
Thou may'ft be drunk, and fwear and curfe. 
And finners like thee ne'er the worfe ; 
At any time thou may'ft repent ; 
'Twill ferve when all thy days are fpent. 
CHRIST. 
Take heed or elfe thou art undone ; 
Thefe thoughts are from the wicked One, 
Narrow's the way that leads to life. 
Who walk therein do meet with ftrife. 
Few fhall be faved, young man know, 
Mofl do unto deflruction go. 
If righteous ones fcarce faved be. 
What will at laft become of thee ! 
Oh ! don't reject my precious call, 
Left suddenly in hell thou fall ; 



But didit to me turn a deaf ear; 
And now in thy calamity, 
I will not muid nor hear thy cry ; 
Thy day is pafl, begone from me, 
Thou who didlt love iniquity, 
Above thy foul and Saviour dear ; 
Who on the crofs great pains did bear, 
My mercy thou didft much abufe. 
And all good counfel didft refufe, 
Juftice will therefore vengeance take. 
And thee a fad example make. 

Y OUTH. 

O fpare me. Lord, forbear thy hand^ 
Don't cut me off who trembling fland, 
Begging for mercy at thy door, 
O let me have but one year more. 
CHRIST. 

If thou fome longer time fhould have, 
Thou wouldft again to folly cleave : 
Therefore to thee I will not give. 
One day on earth longer to live. 
Death. 

Youth, I am come to fetch thy breath, 
And cany thee to th' fhades of death. 
No pity on thee can I fhow, 
Thou haft thy God offended fo. 
Thy foul and body I'll divide, 



Unlefs you foon converted be, 
God's kingdom thou fhalt never fee. 

Y OUTH. 

Lord, I am now at a great Hand: 
If I fhould yield to thy command. 
My comrades will me much deride. 
And never more will me abide. 
Moreover, this I alfo know, 
Thou can'ft at laft great mercy fhow. 
When I am old, and pleafure gone. 
Then what thou fay'ft I'll think upon, 
CHRIST. 

Nay, hold vain youth, thy time is fhort, 
I have thy breath, I'll end thy fport ; 
Thou fhalt not hve till thou art old, 
Since thou in fm art grown fo bold. 
I in thy youth grim death will fend. 
And all thy fports fhall have an end. 
Youth. 

I am too young, alas to die, . . 

Let death fome old grey head efpy. 
O fpare me, and I will amend, 
And with thy grace my foul befriend, 
Or elfe I am undone alas. 
For I am in a woful cafe. 
CHRIST. 

When I did call, you would not hear, 



Thy body in the grave I'll hide, 
And thy dear foul in hell mufl lie 
With Devils to eternity. 

The conclujion. 
Thus end the days of woful youth, 
Who won't obey nor mind the truth ; 
Nor hearken to what preachers fay, 
But do their parents disobey. 
They in their youth go down to hell. 
Under eternal wrath to dwell. 
Many don't live out half their days. 
For cleaving unto finful ways. 

The late Reverend and Venerable Mr. Na- 
thaniel Clap,o/" Newport on Rhode 
Island ; his Advice to children. 

I^OOD children fliould remember daily, 
God their Creator, Redeemer, and 

Sanctifier ; to believe in, love and ferve him ; 

their parents to obey them in the Lord; 

their bible and catechifm ; their baptifm ; 

the Lord's day; the Lord's death and re- 

furrection ; their own death and refurrecti- 

on ; and the day of judgment, when all that 

are not fit for heaven muft be fent to heli. 

And they ITiould pray to G o d in the name 

of C H R 1 8 T , for faving grace. 



I 



THE PETTY SCHOOL.* 

BY CHARLES HOOLB, A. M., 

Master of Grammar School at Rotherham in 1(>36, and of a Private School in London in 1660 



Chapter I. — Hop) a child may he helped in the first pronunciation of his letters. 

My aim being to discover the old Art of Teaching School, and how it may be 
improved in every part suitable to the years and capacities of such children as 
are now commonly taught, I shall first begin my discourse concerning a Petty 
School ; and here or elsewhere I shall not busy myself or reader about what a 
child of an extraordinary towardliness, and having a teacher at home, may at- 
tain unto, and in how short a space, but only show how a multitude of various 
wits may be taught all together with abundance of profit and delight to every 
one, which is the proper and main work of our ordinary schools. 

"Whereas, then, it is usual in cities and greater towns to put children to school 
about four or five years of age, and in country villages, because of further dis- 
tance, not till about six or seven, I conceive the sooner a child is put to school 
the better it is, both to prevent ill habits which are got by play and idleness, 
and to inure him betimes to affect learning and well doing. Not to say, how 
the great uncertainty of parents' lives should make them careful of their chil- 
dren's early education, which is like to be the best part of their patrimony, 
whatever good thing else they may leave them in this world. 

I observe that betwixt three and four years of age a child hath great propen- 
sity to peep into a book, and then is the most seasonable time (if conveniences 
may be had otherwise) for him to begin to learn ; and though perhaps then he 
can not speak so very distinctly, yet the often pronunciation of his letters will 
be a means to help his speech, especially if one take notice in what organ or iii- 
Btrument he is most defective, and exercise him chiefly in those letters which 
belong unto it. 

Now there are five organs or instruments of speech, in the right hitting of 

» The following is a copy of the original title page:— 

THE 

PETTY-SCHOOLE. 

SHEWING 

A way to teach little 
Children to read English with 
delight and profit, (espe- 
cially) according to 
the New Primar. 

By C. H. 

LOJ^DOJT, 

Printed by F. T. for Andreie Crook 

at the Green Dragon in Pavis 

Church Yard, 1659. 



402 THE PETTY SCHOOL. 

which, as the breath moveth from within through the mouth, a true pronuncia 
tion of every letter is made, viz., the lips, the teeth, the tongue, the roof of the 
mouth, and the throat; according to which if one rank the twenty-four letters 
of our English alphabet, he shall find that A, E, I, 0, U proceed by degrees 
from the throat, along betwixt the tongue and the roof of the mouth to the lips 
contracted, and that Y is somewhat like I, being pronounced with other letters; 
but if it be named by itself, it requireth some motion of the lips. B, F, M, P, W, 
and V consonants belong to the lips, C, S, X, Z to the teeth, D, L, N, T, R to 
the tongue, B, H, K, Q to the roof of the mouth. But the sweet and natural 
pronunciation of them is gotten rather by imitation than precept, and therefore 
the teacher must be careful to give every letter its distinct and clear sound, that 
the child may get it from his voice, and be sure to make the child open his 
mouth well as he uttereth a letter, lest otherwise he drown or hinder the sound 
of it. For I have heard some foreigners to blame us Englishmen for neglecting 
this mean to a plain and audible speaking, saying, that the cause why we gen- 
erally do not speak so fully as they, proceeded from an ill habit of mumbling, 
which children got at their first learning to read, which it was their care there- 
fore to prevent or remedy betimes, and so it should be ours, seeing pronuncia- 
tion is that that sets out a man, and is sufficient of itself to make one an orator. 

II. — How a child may be taught with delight to know all his letters in a very 
Utile time. 

The usual way to begin with a child, when he is first brought to school, is to 
teach him to know his letters in the hornbook, where he is made to run over 
all the letters in the alphabet or Christ-cross-row, both forward and backward, 
until he can tell any one of them which is pointed at, and that in the English 
character. 

This course we see hath been very efiectual in a short time with some more 
ripe-witted children ; but others of a slower apprehension (as the most and best 
commonly are) have been thus learning a whole year together, and though they 
have been much chid and beaten too for want of heed, could scarce tell six of 
their letters at twelve months' end, who, if they had been taught in a way more 
agreeable to their mean apprehensions, (which might have wrought more readily 
upon the senses, and affected their minds with what they did,) would doubtless 
have learned as cheerfully if not as fast as the quickest, 

I shall therefore mention sundry ways that have been taken to make a child 
know liis letters readUy, out of which the discreet teacher may choose what ia 
most likely to suit with his learner. 

I have known some that (according to Mr. Brinsley's direction) have taught 
little ones to pronounce all the letters, and to spell pretty well before they Knew 
one letter in a book ; and this they did, by making the chUd to sound the five 
vowels, a, e, i, o, u, like so many bells upon his finger's ends, and to say which 
finger was such or such a vowel, by changes; then putting single consonantg 
before the vowels,' (leaving the hardest of them till the last,) and teaching him 
how to utter them both at once, as va, ve, vi, vo, vu, da, de, di, do, du ; and 
again, by putting the vowels before a consonant, to make him say, as, es, is, os, 
us, ad, ed, id, od, ud. Thus they have proceeded from syllables of two or three, 
or more letters, till a child hath been pretty nimble in the most. But this ia 
rather to be done in a private house than a public school; however this man 



THE PETTY SCHOOL. 403 

ner of exercise now and then amongst little scholars will make their lessons 
more familiar to them. 

The greatest trouble at the first entrance of children is to teach them how to 
know their letters one fi-om another when they see them in the book altogether; 
for the greatness of their number and variety of shape do puzzle young wits to 
difference them, and the sense can but be intent upon one single object at once, 
60 as to take its impression and commit it to the imagination and memory. 
Some have therefore begun but with one single letter, and after they have showed 
it to the child in the alphabet, have made him to find the same any where else in 
the book till he knew that perfectly ; and then they have proceeded to another 
in like manner, and so gone through the rest. 

Some have contrived a piece of ivory with twenty-four flats or squares, in 
every one of which was engraven a several letter, -and by playing with a chQd 
in throwing this upon a table, and showing him the letter only which lay upper- 
most, have in a few days taught him the whole alphabet. 

Some have got twenty-four pieces of ivory cut in the shape of dice, with a 
letter engraven upon each of them, and with these they have played at vacant 
hours with a child till he hath known them all distinctly. They begin first 
with one, then with two, afterwards with more letters at once as the chUd got 
icnowledge of them. To teach him likewise to spell, they would place conso- 
nants before or after a vowel, and then join more letters together so as to 
make a word, and sometimes divide it into syllables, to be parted or put to- 
gether. Now this kind of letter sport may be profitably permitted among be- 
ginners in a school, and instead of ivory, they may have white bits of board, or 
smaU shreds of paper or pasteboard, or parchment with a letter written upon 
each to play withal amongst themselves. 

Some have made pictures in a little book, or upon a scroll of paper wrapped 
upon two sticks within a box of isinglass, and by each picture have made three 
sorts of that letter with which its name beginneth ; but those being too many 
at once for a child to take notice of, have proved not so useful as was intended. 
Some likewise have had pictures and letters pruated in this manner on the 
backside of a pack of cards to entice children, that naturally love that sport, to 
the love of learning their books. 

Some have written a letter in a great character upon a card, or chalked it out 
upon a trencher, and by telling a child what it was, and letting him strive to 
make the like, have imprinted it quickly in his memory, and so the rest one 
after another. 

One having a son of two years and a half old, that could but even go about 
the house, and utter some few gibberish words in a broken manner, observing 
him one day above the rest to be busied about shells and sticks, and such like 
toys, which himself had laid together in a chair, and to miss any one that was 
taken from him he saw not how, and to seek for it about the house, became 
very desirous to make experiment what that child might presently attain to in, 
point of learning. Thereupon he devised a little wheel, with all the capital Ro- 
man letters made upon a paper to wrap round about it, and fitted it to turn in a 
little round box, which had a hole so made in the side of it, that only one letter 
might be seen to peep out at once. This he brought to the chUd, and showed 
him only the letter 0, and told him what it was. The child being overjoyed 
with his new gambol, catcheth the box out of his father's hand, and runs with 



404 THE PETTY SCHOOL. 

it to his playfellow a year younger than himselfj and in his broken language 
tells him there was "an 0, an 0." And when the other asked him where, he 
said, "In a hole, in a hole," and showed it him; which the lesser child then 
took such notice ofj as to know it again ever after from all the other letters. 
And thus by playing with the box, and inquiring concerning any letter that 
appeared strange to him what it was, the child learned all the letters of the 
alphabet in eleven days, being in this ABC character, and would take pleas- 
ure to show them in any book to any of his acquaintance that came next. By 
this instance you may see what a propensity there is in nature betimes to learn- 
ing, could but the teachers apply themselves to their young scholars' tenuity ; 
and how by proceeding in a clear and facile method that all may apprehend, 
every one may benefit more or less by degrees. According to these contriv- 
ances to forward children, I have published a Neiu Primer; in the first leaf 
whereof I have set the Roman capitals, (because that character is now most in 
use, and those letters the most easy to be learned,) and have joined therewith 
the pictures or images of some things whose names begin with that letter, by 
which a child's memory may be helped to remember how to call his letters, as 
A for an ape, B for a bear, &c. This hieroglypliical device doth so affect chil- 
dren, (wlio are generally forward to communicate what they know,) that I have 
observed them to teach others, that could not so readily learn, to know all the 
letters in a few hours' space, by asking them wiiat A stands for? and so con- 
cerning other letters backward and forward, or as they best liked. 

Thus when a child hath got the names of his letters, and their several shapes 
withal in a playing manner, he may be easily taught to distinguish them in the 
following leaf, which containeth first the greater and then the small Roman char- 
acters, to be learned by five at once or more, as the child is able to remember 
them ; other characters I would have forborne till one be well acquainted with 
these, because so much variety at the first doth but amaze young wits, and our 
English characters (for the most part) are very obscure, and more hard to be 
imprinted in the memory. And thus much for learning to know letters ; we 
shall next (and according to order in teaching) proceed to an easy way of dis- 
tinct spelling. 

III. — How to teach a child to speU distinctly. 

The common way of teaching a child to spell is, after he knows the letters in 
his alphabet, to initiate him in those few syllables, which consist of one vowel 
before a consonant, as ab, eb, ib, ob, ub, &c., or of one vowel after a consonant, 
as ba, be, bi, bo, bu, Sec, in the hornbook, and thence to proceed with him by 
little and little to the bottom of the book, hearing him twice or thrice over till 
he can say his lesson, and then putting hun to a new one. 

In which course I have known some more apt children to have profited pretty 
well, but scarce one of ten, when they have gone through the book, to be able 
to spell a word that is not in it. And some have been certain years daily ex- 
ercised saying lessons therein, who, after much endeavor spent, have been ac- 
counted mere blockheads, and rejected altogether as incapable to learn any 
tiling; whereas, some teachers that have assayed a more familiar way, have 
professed that they have not met with any such thing as a dunce amid a great 
multitude of little scholars. 

Indeed, it is Tully's observation of old, and Erasmus' assertion of later years, 



THE PETTY SCHOOL. 405 

that il is as natural- for a child to learn, as it is for a beast to go, a bird to fly, or 
a fisL to swim, and I verily believe it ; for the nature of man is restlessly de- 
sirous to know things, and were discouragements taken out of the way, ana 
meet help aflbrded young learners, they would doubtless go on with a great 
deal more cheerfulness, and make more proficiency at their books than usually 
they do. And could the master have the discretion to make their lessons fa- 
miliar to them, children would as much deliglit in being busied about them, aa 
in any other sport, if too long continuance at them might not make them tedious. 

Amongst those that have gone a readier way to reading, I shall only mention 
Mr. Roe and Mr. Robinson, the latter of whom I have known to have taught 
little children not much above four years old to read distinctly in the Bible, in 
six weeks' time or under; their books are to be had in print, but every one 
hath not the art to use them. And Mr. Coote's English Schoolmaster seems 
rather to be fitted for one tliat is a master indeed than for a scholar. 

Besides the way then which is usual, you may (if you think good) make use 
of that which I have set down in the New Primer to help little ones to spell 
readily, and it is this : 

1. Let a child be well acquainted with his vowels, and made to pronounce 
them fully by themselves, because they are able to make a perfect sound alone. 

2. Teach him to give the true value or force of the consonants, and to take 
notice how imperfectly they sound, except a vowel be joined with them. Both 
these are set apart by themselves. 

3. Proceed to syllables made of one consonant set before a vowel, (section 5,) 
and let him join the true force of the consonant with the perfect sound of the 
vowel, as to say ba, he, M, bo, hu, &c. Yet it were good to leave ca, ce, ci, 
CO, cu, and ga, ge, gi, go, gu, to the last, because the value of the consonant, in 
the second and third syllables doth differ from that in the rest. 

4. Then exercise him in syllables made of one vowel set before one conso- 
nant, (section 6,) as to say ab, eb, ib, ob, ub, &c., tiU he can spell any syllable of 
two letters backward or forward, as ba, be, bi, bo, hu; ah, eb, ib, ob, ub; ba, ab; 
he, eb ; bi, ib ; ho, ob ; bu, ub ; and so in all the rest, comparing one with another. 

5. And if to any one of these syllables you add a letter, and teach him'how 
to join it in sound with the rest, you will make him more ready in spelling; as 
if before ah you put h, and teach him to say bah ; if after ba you put d, and let 
him pronounce it bad, he will quickly be able to join a letter with any of the 
rest, as nip, pin, hut, tub, &c. 

To inure your young scholar to any, even the hardest syllable, in an easy 
way, 

1. Practice hira in the joining of consonants that begin syllables (section 7) 
80 that he may give their joint forces at once ; thus 

Having showed him to sound hi or hr together, make him pronounce them, 
and a vowel with them, bki, bra, hie, bre, and so in any of the rest. 

2. Then practice him likewise in consonants that end syllables, (section 8 ;) 
make him first to give the force of the joined consonants, and then to put the 
vowels before them; as ble with the vowels before them sound able, eble, ible, 
able, uhle, to all of which you may prefix other consonants and change them into 
words of one syllable, as fable, peble, bible, noble, bubble, with a h inserted or the 
like. "Where observe that e in the end of many syllables, being silent, doth 
qualify the sound of the foregoing vowel, so as to make words different from 



406 THE PETTY SCHOOL. 

those that have not e ; as you may see made differeth quite from Tnad, bett^-om 
bet, pipe from pip, sope from sop, and cube from cub. Whereby I think them 
in an error that leave out e in the end of words, and them that in pronouncing 
it make two syllables of one, in stable, bible, people, &c., which judicious Mr. 
Mulcaster wUl not allow. 

f In this exercise of spelling you may do well sometimes to make all the young 
beginners stand together, and pose them one by one in all sorts of syllables, till 
they be perfect in any ; and to make them delight therein, 

1. Let them spell many syllables together which differ only in one letter, aa 
and, hand, hand, land, sand. 

2. Teach them to frame any word of one syllable, by joining any of the con- 
sonants which go before vowels, with those that are used to follow vowels, and 
putting in vowels betwixt them, as black, block; clack, clock. 

And this they may do afterward amongst themselves, having several loose 
letters made and given them to compose or divide in a sporting manner, which 
I may rightly term the letter sport. 

When a child has become expert in joining consonants with the vowels, then 
take him to the diphthongs, (section 9,) and there 

1. Teach him the natural force of a diphthong, (which consists of two vowel3 
joined together,) and make him sound it distinctly by itself, as ai, ei, &c. 

2. Let him see how it is joined with other letters, and learn to give its pro- 
nunciation with them, minding him how the same diphthong differs from itself 
sometimes in its sound, and which of the two vowels in it hath the greatest 
power in pronunciation, as in people, e seemeth to drown the o. 

And besides those words in the book, you may add others of your own, tUl 
by many examples the child doth well apprehend your meaning, so that he can 
boldly adventure to imitate you, and practice himself. 

Thus after a child is thoroughly exercised in the true sounding of the vowels 
and consonants together, let him proceed to the spelling of words, first of one 
sj'llable, (section 10,) then of two, (section 11,) then of three, (section 12,) then 
of four, (section 13,) in all of which let him be taught how to utter every sylla- 
ble by itself truly and fully, and be sure to speak out the last. But in words 
of more syllables, let him learn and part them according to these profitable 
rules : 

1. An English syllable may sometimes consist of eight letters, but never of 
more, as strength. 

2. In words that have many syllables, the consonant between two vowels 
belongeth to the latter of them, as hu-mi-li-tie. 

3. Consonants which are jomed in the beginning of words are not to be 
parted in the middle of them, as my-ste-ry. 

4. Consonants which are not joined in the beginning of words are to be parted 
in the middle of them, aa for-get-ful-ness. 

5. If a consonant be doubled in the middle of a word, the first belongs to the 
foregoing syllable, and the latter to the following, as pos-ses-si-on. 

6. In compound words, every part which belongeth to the single words must 
be set by itself, as in-a-bi-li-ty. 

And these rules have I here set down to inform the less skillful teacher how 
he is to guide his learner, than to puzzle a child about them, who is not yet an 
weU able to comprehend them. 



THE PETTY SCHOOL. 407 

I have also divided those words in the book, to let children see how they 
ought to divide other polysyllable words, in which they must always be very 
careful (as I said) to sound out the last syllable very fully. 

To enable a child the better to pronounce any word he meets withal in read- 
ing, I have set down some, more hard for pronunciation, (section 14,) in often 
reading over which he may be exercised to help his utterance ; and the master 
may add more at his own discretion, till he see that his willing scholar doth not 
stick in spelling any, be it never so hard. 

And that the child may not be amused with any thing in his book when he 
cometh to read, I would have him made acquainted with the pauses, (section 
15,) with the figures, (section 16,) numeral letters, (section 17,) quotations (sec- 
tion 18) and abbreviations, (section 19,) which being but a work of a few hours' 
space, may easily be performed after he can readily spell, which when he can 
do, he may profitably be put to reading, but not before ; for I observed it a 
great defect in some of Mr. Robinson's scholars, (whose way was to teach to 
read presently without any spelling at all,) that when they were at a loss about 
a word, they made an imperfect confused sound in giving the force of the con- 
sonants, which if they once missed, they knew not which way to help them- 
selves to find what the word was ; whereas, if after a child know his letters, he 
be taught to gather them into just syllables, and by the joining of syllables to- 
gether to frame a word, (which as it is the most ancient, so certainly it is the 
most natural method of teaching,) he will soon be able, if he stick at any word 
in reading, by the naming of its letters and pronouncing of its syllables, to say 
what it is, and then he may boldly venture to read without spelling at all, 
touching the gaining of a habit whereof I shall proceed to say somewhat in the 
next chapter. 

IV. — How a child may be taught to read any English book perfectly. 

The ordinary way to teach children to read is, after they have got some 
knowledge of their letters, and a smattering of some syllables and words in the 
hornbook, to turn them into the A B C or Primer, and therein to make them 
name the letters and spell the words, till by often use they can pronounce (at 
least) the shortest words at the first sight. 

This method takes with those of prompter wits ; but many of more slow ca- 
pacities, not finding any thing to aflect and so make them heed what they 
learn, go on remissly from lesson to lesson, and are not much more able to read 
when they have ended their book than when they begun it. Besides, the 
ABC being now (I may say) generally thrown aside, and the ordinary Primer 
not printed, and the very, fundamentals of Christian religion (which were wont 
to be contained in those books, and were commonly taught children at home by 
heart before they went to school) with sundry people (almost in all places) 
slighted, the matter which is taught in most books now in use is not so famihar 
to them, and therefore not so easy for children to learn. 

But to hold still to the sure foundation, I have caused the Lord's Prayer, (sec- 
tion 20,) the Creed, (section 21,) and the Ten Commandments (section 23) to be 
printed in the Roman character, that a child having learned already to know 
his letters and how to spell, may also be initiated to read by them, which he 
will do the more cheerfully if he be also instructed at home to say them by 
healt. 



408 THE PETTY b^iHOOL. 

As he reads these, I would have a child name what words ne can at first 
sight, and what he can not, to spell them, and to take notice what pauses and 
numbers are in his lesson, and to go over them often, till he can tell any tittle 
in them, either in or without the book. 

When he is thus well entered in the Eoman character, I woald have him 
made acquainted with the rest of the characters now in use, (section 23,) which 
will be easily done by comparing one with another, and reading over those sen- 
tences, psalms, thanksgivings, and prayers (which are printed in greater and 
less characters of sundry sorts) till he have them pretty well by heart. 

Thus having all things which concern reading English made familiar to him, 
he may attain to a perfect habit of it, 1, by reading The Single Psalter; 2. The 
Psalms in Meter ; 3. The School of Good Manners, or such other like easy books 
which may both profit and delight him. All of which I would wish he may read 
over at least thrice, to make the matter as well as the words leave an impres- 
sion upon his mind. If any where he stick at any word (as seeming too hard) 
let him mark it with a pin, or the dint of his nail, and by looking upon it again 
he will remember it. 

"When he can read any whit readily, let him begin the Bible and read over 
the book of Genesis (and other remarkable histories in other places of Scripture 
which are most likely to delight him) by a chapter at a time ; but acquaint him 
a little with the matter beforehand, for that will entice him to read it, and make 
him more observant of what he reads. After he hath read, ask him such gen- 
eral questions out of the story as are most easy for him to answer, and he will 
the better remember it. I have known some, that by hiring a child to read two 
or three chapters a day, and to get so many verses of it by heart, have made 
them admirable proficients, and that betimes, in the Scriptures, which was Tim- 
othy's excellency and his grandmother's great commendation. Let him now 
take liberty to exercise himself in any English book (so the matter of it be but 
honest) till he can perfectly read in any place of a book that is ofiered him ; and 
when he can do this, I adjudge him fit to enter into a grammar school but not 
before. 

For thus learning to read English perfectly, I allow two or three years' time, 
so that at seven or eight years of age a child may begin Latin. 

V. — Wherein children, for whom the Latin tongue is thought to ie unnecessary, 
are to ie employed after they can read English well. 

It is a fond conceit of many that have either not attained, or by their own 
negligence have utterly lost the use of the Latin tongue, to think it altogethei 
unnecessary for such children to learn it as are intended for trades, or to be 
kept as drudges at home, or employed about husbandry. For first, there are 
few children but (in their playing years, and before they can be capable of any 
serious employment in the meanest calling that is) may be so far grounded in 
the Latin as to find that little smattering they have of it to be of singular use to 
them, both for the understanding of the English authors (which abound now-a- 
days with borrowed words) and the holding of discourse with a sort of men 
that delight to flaunt it in Latin. 

Secondly, Besides I have heard it spoken to the great commendation of some 
countries where care is had for the well education of children, that every peas- 
ant (almost) is able to discourse with a stranger in the Latin tongue ; and why 



THE PETTY SCHOOL 409 

may not we here in England obtain the like praise if we did but, as they, con- 
tinue our children at the Latin school till they be well acquainted with that 
language, and thereby better fitted for any calling. 

Thirdly, And I am sorry to add, that the non-improvement of children's 
time after they can read English any whit well-throweth open a gap to all loose 
kinds of behavior ; for being then (as it is too commonly to be seen, especially 
with the poorer sort) taken from the school, and permitted to run wild, up and 
down, without any control, they adventure to commit all manner of lewdness, 
and so become a shame and dishonor to their friends and country. 

If these or the like reasons therefore might prevail to persuade them that 
have a prejudice against Latin, I would advise that all children might be put to 
the grammar school so soon as they can read English well, and suffered to con- 
tinue at it till some honest calling invite them thence ; but if not, I would wish 
them rather to forbear it than to become there a hindrance to others, whose 
work it is to learn that profitable language. And that they may not squande ; 
away their time in idleness, it were good if they were put to a writing-school 
where they might be, first, helped to keep their English by reading a chapter 
(at least) once a day; and second, taught to write a fair hand; and thirdly, 
afterward exercised in arithmetic and such preparative arts as may make them 
completely fit to undergo any ordinary calling. And being thus trained up in a 
way of discipline, they will afterward prove more easily pliable to their master's 
commands. 

Now, forasmuch as few grammar schools of note will admit children into them 
till they have learned their Accidents, the teaching of that book also becometh 
for the most part a work for a Petty School, where many that undertake to 
teach it, being altogether ignorant of the Latin tongue, do sorrily perform that 
task, and spend a great deal of time about it to little or no purpose. I would 
have that book therefore by such let alone and left to the grammar school as 
most fitting to be taught there only, because it is intended as an introduction of 
grammar to guide children in a way of reading, writing, and speaking Latin, 
and the teachers of the grammar art are most deeply concerned to make use of 
it for that end. And instead of the AccidenU, which they do neither understand 
nor profit by, they may be benefited in reading orthodoxal catechisms and other 
books that may instruct them in the duties of a Christian, such as The Practice 
of Piety, TJie Practice of Quietness, The Whole Duty of Man; and afterward in 
other delightful books, of English history, as The History of Queen Elizabeth, or 
poetry, as Herherfs Poems, QuarVs Emblems; and by this means they will gain 
such a habit and delight in reading as to make it their chief recreation when 
liberty is afforded them. And their acquaintance with good books will (by 
God's blessing) be a means so to sweeten their (otherwise sour) natures, that 
they may live comfortably towards themselves, and amiably converse with other 
persons. 

Yet if the teacher of a Petty School have a pretty good understanding of the 
Latin tongue, he may the better adventure to teach the Accidents, and proceed 
in doing so with far more ease and profit to himself and learner, if he observe a 
Bure mothod of grounding his children in the rudiments of grammar, and pre- 
paring them to speak and write familiar Latin, which I shall hereafter discover, 
having first set down somewhat how to remedy that defect in reading English 
with which the grammar schools are very much troubled, especially where there 
is not a good Petty School to discharge that work aforehand. And before I 



410 THE PETTY SCHOOI,. 

proceed further, I will express my mind in the lext two chapters touching the 
erecting of a Petty School, aaa how it may probably flourish by good order and 
discipline. 

VT. — Of the founding of a Petty School. 

The Petty School is the place where, indeed, the first principles of all religion 
and learning ought to be taught, and therefore rather deserveth that more en- 
couragement should be given to the teachers of it than that it should be left as 
a work for poor women, or others whose necessities compel them to undertake 
it as a mere shelter from beggary. 

Out of this consideration it is (perhaps) that some nobler spirits, whom God 
hath enriched with an overplus of outward means, have, in some places where- 
unto they have been by birth (or otherwise) related, erected Petty School-houses, 
and endowed them with yearly salaries ; but those are so inconsiderate toward 
the maintenance of a master and his family, or so overcloyed with a number of 
free scholars to be taught for nothing, that few men of good parts will deign to 
accept of them, or continue at them for any while, and for this cause I have 
observed such weak foundations fall to nothing. 

Yet if any one be desirous to contribute toward such an eminent work of 
charity my advice is, that he erect a school and dwelling-house together, about 
the middle of a market town, or some populous country village, and accommo- 
date it with a safe yard adjoining to it, if not with an orchard or garden, and 
that he endow it with a salary of (at least) twenty pounds per annum, in con- 
sideration whereof all such poor boys as can conveniently frequent it may be 
tauglit gratis, but the more able sort of neighbors may pay for their children's 
teaching as if the school was not free, for they wiU find it no small advantage to 
have such a school amongst them. 

Such a yearly stipend and convenient dwelling, with a liberty to take young 
children to board, and to make what advantage he can best by other scholars; 
will invite annan of good parts to undertake the charge, and excite him to the 
diligent and constant performance of his duty, especially if he be chosen into 
•the place by three or four honest and discreet trustees, that may have power 
also to remove him thence, if by his uncivil behavior or gross neglect he render 
himself incapable to perform so necessary a service to the church and common- 
wealth. 

As for the qualifications of one that is to be the teacher of a Petty School, I 
would have him to be a person of a pious, sober, comely and discreet behavior, 
and tenderly affectionate toward children, having some knowledge of the Latin 
tongue, and ability to write a fair hand and good skill in arithmetic, and then 
let him move within the compass of his own orb so as to teach all his scholars 
(as they become capable) to read English very well, and afterward to write and 
cast accounts. And let him not meddle at all with teaching the Accidents, ex- 
cept only to some more pregnant wits which are intended to be set forward to 
learn Latin, and for such be sure that he ground them well, or else dismiss 
them, as soon as they can read distinctly and write legibly, to the grammar 
school. 

I should here have closed my discourse, and shut up this Petty School, were 
it not that I have received a model for the maintaining of students from a 
worthy friend's hand, (and one that is most zealously and charitably addicted 
to advance learning, and to help it in its very beginning to come forward to ita 



THE PETTY SCHOOL. 411 

full rise,) by which I am encouraged to address my reiiiair ing words to the 
godly-minded trustees and subscribers for so good a worlc, (especially to those 
amongst them that know me and my school endeavors;) and this I humbly re- 
quest of them, that as they have happily contrived a model for the education of 
students, and brought it on a sudden to a great degree of perfection, so they 
should also put to their hands for the improvement of school learnii^, without 
which such choice abilities as they aim at in order to the ministry can not pos- 
sibly be obtained. And for the first foundation of such a work, I presume to 
offer my advice, that in some convenient places, within and without the city, 
there may be Petty Schools erected, according to the number of wards, unto 
which certain poor children out of every parish may be sent and taught gratis, 
and all others that please to send their children thither may have them taught 
at a reasonable rate, and be sure to have them improved to the utmost of what 
they are capable. And I am tho rather induced to propound such a tiling be- • 
cause that late eminent. Dr. Bathurst, lately deceased, Mr. Gouge, and some 
others yet hving did, out of their own good aflfection to learning, endeavor at 
their own charge to promote the like. 

YII. — Of Uie discipline of a Petty School. 

The sweet and orderly behavior of children addeth more credit to a school 
than due and constant teaching, because this speaketh to every one that the 
child is well taught, though (perhaps) he learn but Httle, and good manners in- 
deed are a main part of good education. I shall therefore take occasion to 
speak somewhat concerning the discipline of a Petty School, leaving the further 
discourse of children's manners to books that treat purposely of that subject, as 
. Rasmus de Tnorihus, YoutKs Behavior, &c. 

1. Let every scholar repair to school before eight o'clock in the morning, i* 
in case of weakness before nine; and let him come fairly washed, neatly 
combed, and handsomely clad, and by commending his cleanness, and showing 
it to his feUows, make him take pleasure betimes of himself to go neat and 
comely in his clothes. 

2. Let such as come before school-time take liberty to recreate themselves 
about the school, yet so as not to be suffered to do any thing whereby to harm 
themselves or school-fellows, or to give offence or make disturbance with any 
neighbor. 

3. When school-time is called, let them all go orderly to their own places, and 
here apply themselves diligently to their bfeoks without noise or running about. 

4. When the master cometh into the school, let them stand up and make 
obeisance, (so likewise when any stranger cometh in ;) and after notice is taken 
of those who are absent, let one that is most able read a chapter, and the rest 
attend and give some little account of what they have heard read. Then let 
him that read say a short prayer fitted for the school, and afterward let every 
one settle to his present task. 

5. The whole school may not unfitly be divided into four forms, whereof the 
first and lowest should be of those that learn to know their letters, whose les^ 
•ons may be in the Primer ; the second, of those that learn to spell, whose les- 
sons may be in the Single Psalter ; the third, of those that learn to read, whose 
lessons may be in the Bible ; the fourth, of those that are exercised in reading, 
writing, and casting accounts, whose lessons may be in such profitable English 
books aa the parents can best provide and the master think fitt'jst to be taught 



412 THE PETTY SCHOOL. 

6. Let the lessons be the same to each boy in every form, and let the master 
proportion them to the meanest capacities; thus,those that are abler may profit 
themselves by helping their weaker fellows, and those that are weaker be en- 
couraged to see that they can keep company with the stronger. And let the 
t'jvo highest in every form give notice to the master when they come to say_^ 
it, of those that were most negligent in getting the lesson. 

"7. WHen they come to say it, let them all stand orderly in one or two rows, 
and whilst one sayeth his lesson, be sure that all the rest look upon their books, 
and give liberty to him that is next to correct him that is saying it if he mis- 
take ; and in case he can say it better, let him take his place and keep it till the 
same boy or another win it from him. The striving for places (especially) 
amongst little ones will whet them on to more dOigence than any encourage- 
ment that can be given them ; and the master should be very sparing to whip 
any one for his book except he be sullenly neghgent, and then also I would 
choose rather to shame him out of his untowardness by commending some of 
his fellows, and asking him why he can not do as well as they, than by falling 
upon him with rating words or injurious blows. A great care also must be had 
that those children that are slow-witted and of a tender spirit be not any way 
discouraged, though they can not make so good a performance of their task as 
the rest of their fellows. 

8. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays they may say two lessons in the 
forenoon and two in the afternoon, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the fore- 
noon they may also say two lessons ; but on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the 
afternoon and on Saturday mornings I would have the time spent in examining 
and directing them how to spell and read aright, and hearing them say the 
graces, prayers and psalms, and especially the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the 
Ten Commandments, (which are for that purpose set down in the New Primer) 
very perfectly by heart. And those that can say these well may proceed to 
get other catechisms, but be sure they be such as agree with the principles of 
Christian religion. 

9. Their lessons being all said, they should be dismissed about eleven o'clock, 
and then care must be taken that they every one go orderly out of the school, 
and pass quietly home without any stay by the way. And to prevent that too 
common clamor and crowding out of the school door, let them rise out of their 
places one by one with their hat and book in their hand, and make their hon- 
ors to their master as they pass before his face, one following another at a dis- 
tance out of the school. It were fittest and safest that the least went out the 
foremost, that the bigger boys following may give notice of any misdemeanor 
upon the way, 

10. The return to school in the afternoon should be by one o'clock, and those 
that come before that hour should be permitted to play within the bounds till 
the clock strike one, and then let them all take their places in due order, and 
Bay their lessons as they did in the forenoon. After their lessons are ended, let 
one read a chapter and say a prayer, and so let them again go orderly and 
quietly home, about five o'clock in the summer and four in the winter season. 

11. If necessity require any one to go out in the school-time, let him not in- 
terrupt the master by asking him for leave, but let him leave his book with the 
next fellow above him for fear he should else spoil or lose it, and in case he 
tarry too long forth, let notice be given to the monitor. 

12 Those children in the upper form may be monitors, every one a day in 



THE PETTY SCHOOL. 413 

nis turn ; and let them every evening, after all the lessons are said, give a bill 
to the master of their names that are absent, and theirs that have committed 
any disorder, and let him be very moderate in correcting, and be sure to make 
a difference betwixt those faults that are viciously enormous and those that are 
but cMIdish transgressions. "Where admonitions readily take place, it is a need- 
less trouble to use a rod, and as for a ferule I wish it were utterly banished out 
of all schools. 

If any one, before I conclude, should ask me, how many children T think may 
be well and profitably taught (according to the method already proposed) in a 
Petty School ? I return him answer, that I conceive forty boys wiU be enough 
to thoroughly employ one man to hear every one so often as is required ; and 
so many he may hear and benefit himself without making use of any of hia 
scholars to teach the rest, which however may be permitted and is practiced in 
some schools, yet it occasioneth too much noise and disorder, and is no whit .so 
aooeptable to parents or pleasing to the children, be the work never so well 
done. And therefore I advise, that in a place where a great concourse of chil- 
dren may be had, there be more masters than one employed according to tlie 
spaciousness of the room and the number of boys to be taught, so that every 
forty scholars may have one to teach them ; and in case there be boys enough 
to be taught, I would appoint one single master to attend one single form, and 
have as many masters as there are forms, and then the work of teaching little 
ones to the height of their best improvement may be thoroughly done, especially 
if there were a writing-master employed at certain hours in the school, and an 
experienced teacher encouraged as a supervisor, or inspector, to see that the 
whole school be well and orderly taught and disciplined. 

"What I have here written concerning the teaching and ordering of a Petty 
School was in many particulars experienced by myself with a few little boys 
that I taugh^amongst my grammar scholars in London, and I know those of 
eminent worth and great learning that, upon trial made upon their own chil- 
dren at home and others at school, are ready to attest the ease and benefit of 
this method ; insomuch as I was resolved to have adjoined a Petty School to 
my grammar school at the Token House in Lothbury, London, and there to 
have proceeded in this familiar and pleasing way of teaching, had I not been 
unhandsomely dealt with by those whom it concerned, for their own profit's 
sake, to have given me less discouragement. Nevertheless, I think it my duty 
to promote learning what I can, and to lay a sure foundation for such a goodly 
structure as learning is ; and though (perhaps) I may never be able to effect 
what I desire for its advancement, yet it will be my comfort to have imparted 
somewhat to others that may help thereunto. I have here begun at the very 
groundwork, intending (by God's blessing) forthwith to publish The New Dis- 
covery of the Old Art of Teaching, which doth properly belong to a grammar 
school. 

In the meantime I entreat those into whose hands this little work may come 
to look upon it with a single eye, and whether they like or dislike it, to think 
that it is not unnecessary for men of greatest parts to bestow a sheet or two at 
leisure time upon so mean a subject as this seems to be. And that God which 
causeth immense rivers to flow from small spring-heads, vouchsafe to bless these 
weak beginnings in tender age, that good learning may proceed hence to its 
tull perfection in riper yeara. 



ENGLISH PEDAGOGY— OLD AND NEW. 

counsel, he had failed to have the ablative case in his mind, we dare not con- 
jecture. Our forefathers had strict views on the subject of sparing the rod, 
and spoiling the child. Thus one old writer observes of children in general : 

To thir pleyntes mak no grete credence, 
A rodd reformeth thir insolence; 
In thir corage no anger doth nbyde, 
Who spareth the rodd all virtue sette asyde 

Yet the strictness was mingled, as of old, with paternal tenderness, and 
children appeared to have treated their masters with a singular mixture of fa- 
miliarity and reverence. And_it is pleasant to find among the same collection 
of school fragments, a little distitch which speaks of peace-making : 

Wrath of children son be over gon, 
With an apple parties be made at one. 

There is good reason for believing that schoolboys of the fourteenth century 
were much what they are in the nineteenth, and fully possessed of that love of 
robbing orchards, which seems peculiar to the race. 

In the 'Pathway to Knowledge,' printed in London in 1596, occur the fol- 
lowing verses, composed by W. P., the translator from the Dutch of ' the order 
of keeping a Merchant's booke, after the Italian manner of debtor and creditor:' 

Thirty days hath September, Aprill, June and November, 
Febuarie eight and twentie alone, all the rest thirtie and one. 

Looke how many pence each day thou shalt gaine, 
Just so many pounds, halfe pounds and groates: 
With as many pence in a yeare certaine. 
Thou gettest and takest, as each wise man notes. 

Looke how many farthings in a week doe amount. 
In the yeare like shillings, and pence thou shalt count. 

Mr. Davies, in his key to Hutton's Course quotes the following from a manu- 
script of the date of 1570 : 

Multiplication is mie vexation, 

And Division is quite as bad, • 

The Golden Rule is mie stumbling stule. 

And Practice drives me mad. 

In 1600, Thomas Hylles published 'The Arte of Vulgar Arithmeticke, both 
in integrals and fractions,' to which is added Ifasa Mercatorum, which gives the 
following rule for ' the partition of a shilling into its aliquot parts.' 

A farthing first findes fortie eight 
An halfepeny hopes for twentie foure 
Three farthings seekes out ]6streight 
A peny puis a dozen lower. 
Dicke dandiprart drewe Soutdeade 
Twopence took 6 and went his way 
Tom trip and goe with 4 is fled 
But goodman grote on 3 doth stay 
A testerne only 2 doth take 
Moe parts a shilling can not make. 

Nicholas Hunt, in 'The Hand-Maid to Arithmetick Refined,' printed in 1633, 

gives the rule of proof by nines as follows: 

Adde thou upright, reserving every tenne, 
And write the dighits doweall with thy pen, 

The proofs (for truth I say), 

Is to cast nine away. 
For the particular sumnies and several! 
Reject the nines ; likewise from the totall 
When figures like in both chance toremaine 
Subtract the lesser from the great, nothing the rest, 
Or ten to borrow, you are ever prest, 
To pay what borrowed wiis thiiike it no paine, 
But honesty redounding to your gaine. 



ENGLISH PEDAGOGY -OLD AND NEW. 



EARLY ENGLISH SCHOOL BOOKS. 
The ancient Primer was something very different from the school-books to 
vrhich we ordinarily give the name. For in dames' schools of which Chaucer 
speaks, children were provided with few literary luxuries, and had to learn 
their letters off a scrap of parchment nailed on a board, and in most cases 
covered with a thin, transparent sheet of horn to protect the precious manu- 
, uscript. Hence the term ' hornbook ' applied to the elementary books of chil- 
dren. Prefixed to the alphabet, of course, was the Holy Sign of the 
Cross, and so firm a hold does an old custom get on the popular mind, that 
down to the commencement of the present century, alphabets continued to pre- 
serve their ancient heading, and derived from this circumstance their customary 
appellation of ' the Christcross row,' a term so thoroughly established as to 
find a place in our dictionaries. The Medieval Primer is, however, best de- 
scribed in tlie language of the fourteenth century itself The following lan- 
guage occurs in the introduction to a MS. poem of 300 lines, still preserved 
in the British Museum, each portion of which begins with a separate letter. 

In place qs men may se 

When a childe to schole shal sette be 

A Bok is hym ybrought, 

Naylyd on a bord of tre, 

That men cal an A, B, C, 

Wrought is on the bok without. 

V paralTys grete and stoute, 

Royal in rose red. 

That is set, withouten doute. 

In token of Christes ded. 

Red lettar in parthymyn, 

Makyth a childe good and fyn 

Letters to Inke and see, 

By this bok men may devyne, 

That Christe's body was full of pyne, 

That dyed on wod tree. 

After the difficulties of the primer had been overcome, a great deal of ele- 
mentary knowledge was taught to the children, as in Saxon times, through the 
vehicle of verse. For instance, we find a versified geography, of the four- 
teenth century, of which the two following verses may serve as a specimen, 
though the second is not very creditable to our mediaeval geographers; 

This world is delyd (divided), al on thre, 
Asia, Affrike. and Eu-ro-pe. 
Wol ye now here of A-si-e, 
How mony londers ther inne be? 

The lond of Macedonie, 
Egypte the lesse and Ethiope, 
Syria, and the land of Judia, 
These ben all in Asia. 

The following grammar rules belong to the fifteenth century : — 

Mi lefe chyld, 1 kownsel the 
To form till vi tens, thou avise the, 
And have mind of thi clensoune 
Both of nonne and pronoun, 

And ilk case in plurele 
How thou sal end, avise the well; 
And the participyls forget thou not, 
And the comparison be in thi thought, 
The ablative case be in thi minde, 
That he be saved in hys kind, &c 

There is something in the last fragment very suggestive of the rod. What 
would have been the fate of the unlucky grammarian, if in spite of this solemn 



THE HORNBOOK. 



Cotgrave has, "ia Croix depar Dieu, the Christ's-crosse-rowe, or Juyme-bodke, 
wherem a child learnes it; " and Florio, ed. 1611, p. 93, " Centuruola, a childes 
home-booke hanging at his girdle." 




HORNBOOK OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 

In the collection of Sir Thomas Phillipps, at Middlehill, are two genuine 
Hornbooks of the reigns of Charles I. and II. Locke, in his " Thoughts on 
Education," speaks of the "ordinary road of the Hornbook and Primer," and 
directs that "the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments he 
should learn by heart, not by reading them himself in his Primer, but by some- 
body's repeating them before he can read." 

Shenstone, who was taught to read at a dame-school, near Halesowen, in 
Shropshire, in his delightfully quaint poem of the Schoolmistress, commemoratjiig 
his venerable preceptress, thus records the use of the Hornbook: — 

" Lo ; now with state she utters her command ; 
Eftsoons the uf chins to their tasks repair ; 
Their books of stature small they take in hand, 
Which with pellucid horn secured are 
To save from finger wet the letters fair." 



I 



OBJECT TEACHING -PRINCIPLES AND METHODS. 

[From the German of F. Busse, Principal of the Girls' High School of Berlin.*] 



1. — AIMS AND PRINCIPLES. 

Pedagogical authorities have the most diverse views upon object- 
teaching, both in regard to its position and value in general, and to its 
principal and subsidiary objects in particular. The reason of this is, that 
no other discipline embraces the individuality of the child on its physical 
and spiritual sides to such a degree as this does. We speak of exercise 
in observation, object-teaching, practice in thinking, or practice in under- 
standing, practice in speaking or in language, just according as we are 
thinking more especially of the sense-organs and observation, the ability 
to think, the speaking a language. From the standpoint of an enlightened 
science of teaching, the averaging of these various views, and the uniting 
of these aims, is a necessity. 

Since object-teaching is the earliest teaching, and that which begins 
before the child is old enough to go to school (Pestalozzi, Froebel), 
since it takes hold of the child in the full, undifferentiated unity of his 
powers, it is of importance to presuppose that the child has an inborn 
individuality. That clumsy view which considers that what we call indi- 
viduality does not arise until it is produced by the influence of time and 
place, persons and circumstances, and, most of all, by education and 
instruction, — that view, I repeat, prevails amongst those who strive to 
dispiritualize nature everywhere, and especially human nature, and is 
unworthy of an enlightened science of teaching. Just as little as instruc- 
tion can form its empirical conditions — that is, mental capacity and organs 
of speech — in the child, but, instead of that, presupposes them, just so 
little can it dispense with the logical conditions ; namely, the /, endowed 
with powers of observation, discernment, feeling, and willing, — what 
Genesis calls " the living soul," what Solomon calls " the breath of the 
divine power." 

No investigator has yet succeeded in drawing the wonderful boundary- 
line between the spiritual and the physical in human nature ; but if we are 
trying to establish the meaning of the important idea, " intuition," we must 
keep the physical and spiritual sides of our being apart. 

Man, as a sensibly spiritual being, has, first of all, a receptivity for 
impressions of that which is about him and goes on before him. This 
receptivity is called sense. The activities, capacities, and powers of the 
soul which come first into consideration are, therefore, of a purely receptive 
kind. It is the decidedly preponderant activity of sense. While the im- 
pressions of the exterior world are in the act of being appropriated by the 
soul, the first soul-formations, the sensations and perceptions, arise. 

* From Diesterweg's Wcgweisser, edition of 1873. 

27 417 



418 OBJECT TEACHING. BUSSE. 

These are all matters of experience. We need only call to mind the 
popular expression, " The stupid quarter of a year," which ends with the 
child's first smile, that beam of consciousness which is greeted with infinite 
joy. The child has at this period the ordinary vicissitudes and excite- 
ments of its nervous life in pleasure and pain, as well as the wonderful 
modifications of them in its sense-organs. It hears a fondling voice, looks 
into a faithful eye, tastes the sweet milk, feels the mother's breast, the 
gentle lifting and carrying of the arms, and the swinging motion of the 
cradle. These are the sense-impressions, or sensations, which flow towards 
him daily during the short moments of wakefulness. 

With admirable wisdom, nature has so regulated the organism of the 
child that it passes these first days and weeks in the arms of sleep ; for 
could it immediately, like the young lambkin or colt, use its limbs, such an 
immeasurable, incomprehensible world of impressions would stream in 
upon its inner being, that self-consciousness, unable to master them, would 
be forever overcome and unable to develop itself. Do not we teachers 
have the corresponding experience daily in the dissipated and distracted 
youth of our great cities ? Do we not have it hourly when, in the presen- 
tation of a new subject, we give too much at once, and overstep the limits 
which lie in the power of self-consciousness ? 

But the child has not merely sense-impressions or sensations, which bear 
the token of individuality ; it has also sense-intuitions, that is, a multi- 
plicity of sensations which are united together into a unit by the syn- 
thesis of the interior sense, (named by Kant " the table of the inner sense," 
of which the five senses are only radiations.) 

The beast also shares in both the sense-impressions and the sense-intui- 
tions, and indeed, as we must confess, possesses these to a higher degree 
than does man, since it belongs entirely to the world of sense, and is 
endowed with sharper organs of sense, so that it may exist in that world. 

When, for instance, the ape is busy with an apple, he has, in the first 
place, the sense-impression of sight, by means of his eye ; in the second 
place, that o? feeling in his hand; in the third place, the impression of 
smell, if he holds it to his nose ; in the fourth place, that of taste upon his 
tongue ; and, finally, also that of hearing, if the fruit falls to the ground, or 
seeds rattle. But these five different impressions do not remain in him as 
one multitude, but are united upon the table -of his inner sense without his 
participation, and yet with infallible certainty, so that he has the unity 
comprehended within itself of the sense-impression of the apple. 

Let us look at the horse. He hears the crack and swing of the whip ; 
he has often enough felt the smarting impressions of it, and sees it imme- 
diately when the coachman has the instrument in his hand; but these three 
sense-impressions remain in him, not as any thing isolated, but blend into 
the unity of a sense-intuition. 

The (hild is similarly circumstanced in relation to the external world. 
As soon as longer pauses of wakefulness take place, the eye follows the 
movements of the mother, and the impressions of her friendly face, of her 
tender voice, of the nourishment she gives, of the lifting and carrying and 



OBJECT TEACHING. BUSSE. 419 

other cares she bestows upon him, unite in a total picture, in a unity of the 
sense-intuition. 

The sense-impressions are the first, the sense-intuitions the second, and 
the latter mark ah-eady a step of the greater powerfulness of life in gen- 
eral, and of the development of sense in particular. 

But, while the animal rises up into the world of sense-impressions and 
sense-intuitions, the power of the inborn and now gently moving self- 
consciousness raises the sense-impressions into perceptions, and thereby 
raises also the sense-intuitions into intellectual intuitions. 

The perceiving is next becoming assured of something, and in itself is 
yet an undefined, general turning or application of the subjectivity to an 
object, a direction of the spirit to an outside thing, a consciousness of 
parts, character, and differences now becoming clear. But if a perception 
is internally grasped and worked up, and the perception takes place with 
a more decided consciousness, then the occurrence becomes a spiritual 
intuition. 

Intellectual intuition (or intuition absolutely) is each conscious, more 
distinct perception or unity of several perceptions, with an internal summary. 

Intuition is quite a significant word. To look (or to inspect) expresses 
subjective activity, not mere seeing, as the eye of the animal may be 
said to attach itself to the external object attracting the senses, but ex- 
presses the act of sounding it. Intuitten signifies such inspection as exalts 
the object to the contemplator's real objectivity. 

An intuition presupposes : 

1. An immediately present object. 

2. The influence of the same upon one or several sense-organs. 

3. A spiritual activity, to bring this influence to the consciousness ; 
therefore the active directions of the spirit, and the grasping of the same.* 

The mind of the child now incessantly works on. He obtains mastery 
more and more swiftly, and more and more victoriously over the sense- 
impressions and sense-intuitions ; the wealth of perceptions and intellectual 
intuitions, and his self-certainty in them, becomes ever greater ; finally, the 
power of intuitive thinking becomes so great that single intellectual intui- 
tions become ideas. It is these which have always left behind in the 
child's soul the deepest traces, and they become ideas as soon as the mind 
has power to objectivate them ; that is, to dispose of them as of things 
owned, and, independently of the world of sense, to be able at will to call 
them forth out of itself, or to thrust them back. 

But here comes in the need of a sign ; that is, of a word, not as if the 



* Remark. Intuition, in the narrower, original sense, i8 a conscioua impression 
obtained tlirougli tlie sensation of sight. To intuit means, first of all, only the activity 
of the soul called forth by sight. But since the most distinct and the most surely 
defined impressions are called forth, and all other sense-perceptions are supported, 
perfected, and even corrected by the sight, the word intuition has, since the time of 
Kant, been extended to all sensuous perceptions. In the wider sense, every impression 
which is elevated by the sensibility (feeling) is an intuition j what is external thereby 
becomes internal. 



420 OBJECT TEACHING. BUSSE. 

•word called forth the idea, not as if it were the creator of the idea, but 
it serves as the seal of the idea, as the signature of a mental possession. 

Long before the first attempts at speaking, a little hoard of ripening 
ideas has been formed, and a joy, a rapture accompanies the first efi"orts to 
speak, for the child has need of feeling itself and enjoying itself in its self- 
certainty. 

From the idea fixed in the word, man finally rises in maturer age to the 
conception, but let us add, only imperfectly. Few men who are accustomed 
to think, take the trouble so to shape the hoard of their ideas and unde- 
veloped conceptions that they become fixed according to their contents and 
scope. The great multitude allow themselves to be satisfied with ideas and 
conceptiqns as nature and life obtrude them, as it were, — and let us say 
just in this place : object-teaching cannot and will not give an understand- 
ing 'of the external world, which will be clearly conformable to its contents. 
Whoever should aim to sharpen the formal side of this instruction in such 
a way, would, in consideration of the mental immaturity of the child, com- 
mit the severest mistake, and would give into the hands of the opponents 
of this system the sharpest weapons. Also exclusively to accentuate the 
material or practical side of this instruction, the exercise of the senses and 
the enrichment of the intuitions and ideas, Avould be censurable, since this 
instruction is only of value when opposites are connected.* 

Where an extent of phenomena is given, an intent or content must also 
be sought. Where the external world is brought before the observation 
(too often, alas ! only by pictures), the way to the understanding of it must 
also be opened, and the later grasping of the conception in due proportion 
to its contents must be prepared for. 

Intuition without thinking would be blind, and thinking without intuition 
would be empty, dead, word-cram, trifling. 

Luther, with all the force of his German nature, was zealous in his oppo- 
Bition to that dead, abstract teaching and learning, and urged on the in- 
tuitive method. 

" Now," he said, " let us look directly upon the created things rather 
than upon popedom. For we are beginning, thank God, to recognize his 
glorious works and wonders in the little flower ; when we think how power- 
ful and beneficent God is, let us always praise and prize and thank him for 
it. In his creatures we recognize how powerful is his word, how prodigious 
it is." He also drew attention to the relation of the thing to the word, 
and considered the understanding of the word only possible by the under- 
standing of the thing. 

•' The art of grammar," he says, " points out and teaches what the words 
are called and what they mean, but we must first understand and know 
what the thing or the cause is. Whoever wishes to learn and preach, 
therefore, must first know both what the thing is and what it is called be- 
fore he speaks of it — recognition of two kinds, one of the word, the 
other of the thin?. Now to him who has not the knowledge of the thing 
or action, the knowledge of the word is no assistance. According to an 

» , * 

* In other words, when the organ of comparison is brought into play. 



! 



OBJECT TEACHING. BUSSE. 421 

old proverb, 'what one does not understand and know weH, he cannot 
speak of well.' " 

No creative transformation of the essence of education could, however, 
proceed from the school, which remained for centuries the serving-maid — 
less of the Church than of Churchdom. The British giant Bacon had first 
to give us his Novum Organum Scientiarum, that fiery token of a neyv time, 
which had its central point in the natural sciences, and to bring on the abso- 
lute break with the middle ages as well as with antiquity. As Luther came 
forth against a mass of human traditions by which the manifestations of 
God in the Holy Scriptures were disfigured, so Bacon appeared against the 
traditions of human institutions which darkened the manifestations of God 
in creation. Men were from that time forth no longer obliged to read the 
arbitrary and fanciful interpretations of both manifestations, but could 
read the manifestations themselves. He wished men to demand the imme- 
diate contemplation of creation. 

" Hence let us never turn the eyes of the mind," he says, " away from 
the things themselves, but take their images into us just as they are." He 
saw how in his time the physics of Aristotle vvere studied, but not Nature. 
Men read in books what the earth is, what their authors related about 
stones, plants, animals, &c. ; but with their own eyes to investigate these 
stones, plants, and animals, occurred to no one's mind. And thus men 
were obliged to surrender at discretion to the authority of those authors, 
since they ne%er thought of making a critical examination of their descrip- 
tions and stories by their own immediate experiments. But such a prov- 
ing was so much the more necessary because these authors themselves had 
their information at third or fourth hand. It is incredible now what a 
mass of untruth and fable has been heaped up everywhere in books of 
natural history, what monsters their geology created, what magic powers 
they gave to stones, &c. (See Raumer's Pad.) 

When Bacon summoned the world to turn their minds from the past 
and to look with open eyes into living nature, he not only gave to the 
experimental sciences (including also pedagogics) a new impulse in general, 
but he was also the father of realistic pedagogy. Ratichius and Comenius 
learnt from him, and the ' reaV school, the industrial school, the polytechnic 
institutions, down to the object-teaching of Father Pestalozzi, have in him 
their foundation. When Bacon's pupil, John Locke, set up " the healthy 
soul in the healthy body " as the chief maxim in education, is it not the 
same thing as when Pestalozzi and Froebel desired " the harmonious 
development of human nature," and preached conformity to nature in edu- 
cation and instruction ? 

In opposition to the empty, deadening word-teaching that grew rank in 
the schools, " the poisonous seed of scholasticism," Ratichius exclaimed : 

" Everything according to the ordering and course of nature, for all un- 
natural and arbitrary violent teaching is injurious and weakens nature. Let 
us have every thing without constraint and by inward necessity. First the 
thing itself, then the conception or meaning of the thing. No rule before 
we have the substance. Rules without substance lead the understanding 
astray. Every thing through experiment, minute investigation. 



422 OBJECT TEACHING. BTJSSE. 

" No authority is good for anything, if there is not reason and a foundation 
for it. No rule and no system is to be allowed which is not radically ex- 
plored anew, and really founded upon proof." 

Truly when one hears such golden words, one is tempted to ask, " Why 
were those battles on the field of pedagogy necessary ? Why must a Franke, 
a Rousseau, a Basedow, a Pestalozzi, a Diesterweg, a Froebel come, if, as 
Jean Paul said in his Levana, ' merely to repeat that a hundred times, which 
is a hundred times forgotten ' ? " 

In the path which Ratichius had trodden, strode forward a sovereign, 
and with all the power and burning zeal of a reformer, Amos Comenius. 
the author of the first picture-book for children, the 07-bis pictus, in which 
every thing that can address the childish love of objects and representa- 
tions of objects, whether in heaven or on earth, in the human or the animal 
world, is illustrated and explained by description and comment. 

He is to be estimated, starting from a sound, compendious observation 
of human nature and its relations, as well as of pedagogic problems, as the 
spirited father of the so-called object-teaching as a special discipline. 

He says : " With real insight, not with verbal description, must the in- 
struction begin. Out of such insight develops certain knowledge. Not 
the shadows of things, but things themselves, which work upon the mind 
and the imaginative powers, are to lie ever near to the young. Place 
every thing before the mind. Insight is evidence. Only where the things* 
are actually absent, is one helped by the pictorial representation. 

" Men must be led, as far as possible, to create their wisdom, not out of 
books, but out of the contemplation of heaven and earth, oaks and beeches ; 
that is, they must learn to see and investigate the things themselves. Let 
the objects of physical instruction be solid, real, useful things, which affect 
the senses and the powers of the imagination. That happens when they 
are brought near to the senses, visible to the eyes, audible to the ears, fra- 
grant to the nose, agreeable to the taste, grateful to the touch. The begin- 
ning of knowledge should be from the senses. What man has an insight 
into with his senses, impresses itself deeply on the memory, never to be 
forgotten. 

*' Man first uses his senses, then his memory, next his understanding, 
and lastly his judgment. Let us teach not merely to understand, but to 
express what is understood. Speech and the knowledge of things must 
keep step. Teaching of things and of speech must go hand in hand. Words 
without the knowledge of things are empty words." 

This running parallel of the simultaneous learning of things and words 
was the deep secret of the method of Comenius. 

In the time of Hermann Franke, — who, as the noble friend of man, the 
father of the poor and the orphan, the great champion of the German peo- 
ple's-school, deserves to be called the forerunner of Pestalozzi, in organiz- 
ing talent so far superior to him, — the elevation of burger life had become 
so great, the relations of trade and commerce had been so widened, and the 
pedagogics of Comenius had created so much esteem and astonishment in 
the realists (physicists), that the ' Real '-School was able to blossom forth 
upon the ground of that truly practical piety which raised morality to a 



OBJECT TEACHING. BUSSE. 423 

principle of education. The general law of the method was continual con- 
versation with the pupils ; catechism was the soul of the instruction. All 
subjects which had heretofore been taken for granted must be looked into 
and examined critically at the moment. Rare objects of nature were col- 
lected in a naturalist's cabinet. Especially were the children to become 
acquainted with the nature lying around them, with the occupations of hu- 
man life, with the workshops of the handicrafts. 

When such pedagogic wisdom as this did not bear the hoped-for fruits, — 
"when the schools, which had been added to life, as it were, by a beneficent 
piety, were estranged from it again by an ossified pietism — the blame lay, 
as always and chiefly, in the direction which has hitherto fettered the human 
mind whenever it has setybrm above essence. 

But as in the domain of statesmanship, so also in the domain of pedagogy, 
a revolution was preparing in France. 

It was Rousseau who, in " Emil," wrote a book for the literature of the 
world which Gothe called " the Gospel of human nature." 

Let us turn our eyes wholly away from the external and unsuccessful 
experiment, since " Emil " is indeed only the form for proclaiming the 
doctrine of the Pedagogy, the candlestick for these flames, the setting for 
these pearls ; this book was and is, especially for France, as well as for the 
world-wide development of Pedagogy generally, a fact. 

Only Pestalozzi has with equally imposing power fought for the means 
of education gained by listening to Nature itself, for the beginning of educa- 
tion at birth, for instruction gained by insight and self-activity, for self- 
formation through experience ; but Pestalozzi stands higher than Rousseau, 
for as the latter had not the conception of the mother, so was ^'anting in 
him the paternal power of the heart, with which he might, with his " Emil," 
have grasped and sustained a unique and fully authorized influence over 
that great whole — a nation. In the meantime, the flood of light which 
flowed from him over Pedagogy, was so potent that the power which block- 
heads opposed to the illumination could only be compared to the mist which 
softens the light of the sun. 

Under the influence of this spirit, which came to be dominant, the school 
of the philanthropists was formed, which earnestly prrrsued the ideas of 
Rousseau ; " Everything through and for the harmonious development of 
man." ' The founder and representative of this aim was the energetic Basedow. 

In his elementary work, accompanied with one hundi'ed ChodowieckiscJier 
copper-plates (the forerunner of our picture-plates), he gave out an arranged 
plan of all necessary knowledge for the instruction of youth from the begin- 
ning up to the academic age. 

This normal work was followed by the " Philantropin," at Dessau, as a nor- 
mal school. Distinguished men, Campe, Salzmann, Rochow, worked still 
further in the spirit of Basedow. The noble Von Rochow wrote: "Youth 
is the time to be taught. First in school comes the practice of the senses 
and the application of the souls in attention or watchfulness, particularly 
the habit of sight-seeing and hearing ; then practice in reflection upon 
every thing which happens, and in comparison and discrimination." 

In the Basedow-Rochow period there was a strong opposition to the care- 



424 OBJECT TEACHING. BUSSE. 

less old school-ways. Instead of the one-sided training of the meraor)-, 
they wished for an awakening, soul-refreshing instruction and development 
of the thinking power in the pupil. In order to secure this, they proceeded 
to teach them to think, to speak, to observe, to investigate ; they recog- 
nized that above all things, correctly apprehending senses were a funda- 
mental condition for correct judgment. Now they insisted upon further 
material apparatus for culture, and upon a better method, upon enriching 
the pupils' minds with material knowledge and multiplied accomplishments. 

Ihe King in this kingdom, the genius of Christian-human pedagogy 
was Pestalozzi. 

In the midst of the wrecks of his life he still found, as a single costly pearl, 
the motto of education for all times : The develojyment of human nature on 
the ground of nature; education of the people on the firm ground of the 
people and the people^ s needs. 

In opposition to the petty and pernicious principle of utility he found in 
the eternal ideal of human life the welfare of man. 

Tlie development of human nature on the ground of nature is the grand 
thought to which Pestalozzi sought to give permanence to his method 
("Book for Mothers "), which his truest pupil, Froebel, sought in the kin- 
dergarten, and their followers in the so-called object-teaching. 

" When I look back and ask myself," says Pestalozzi, " what I have 
offered peculiarly for the cause of human instruction, I find that I have 
established the highest, most advanced principles of instruction in the 
recognition of intuition as the absolute foundation of all knowledge ; and 
setting aside all single doctrines, have endeavored to find the essence of 
teaching itself and the ultimate form by which the culture of our race must 
be determined as by nature itself" 

All the pedagogues were agreed then, that for the first instruction visible 
material, lying within the sphere of the child and accessible to him, is to be 
chosen for observation, expression, and information, together with the first 
practice in reading, writing, and counting. An object-teaching conformable 
to nature, aiming to produce self-activity in the child, was the word of the 
new pedagogy. 

We will now pass on to the contemplation of the place, of the aim, and 
of the method of object-teaching. 

The foundation of instruction forever won by Pestalozzi in the principle 
of intuition, soon made an end to the so-called pure-thinking exercises 
of the Basedow school, which, executed with arbitrarily selected and most 
unmeaning material, occupied an isolated place in the instruction, and 
missed the living connection. It had been seen that these thinking exer- 
cises, ignoring the material worth of knowledge, led to an empty formalism ; 
that the one-sided enhghtening of the understanding must lead to poverty 
of mind in other fields. 

Now since Pestalozzi had demanded for each subject of instruction the 
power of intuition, the plunge into the material, its all-sided consumption 
and its organic relations, the isolated exercises in pui-e thinking were no 
longer needed, and they were struck out from the plan of the lessons, and 
the so-called object-teaching took their place. Pestalozzi, in his strivings 



OBJECT TEACHING. BUSSE. 425 

to seize upon the truth, did homage to the thinking exei'cises, and once, it 
is said, passed six weeks with the children musing over a hole in the car- 
pet. Later, as the importance of nature as the best teacher disclosed 
itself to him, he set up (see " The Mother's Book ") the human body as, ac- 
cording to his view, the nearest and ever-present object-lesson to the child. 

The body is certainly the nearest material object to the child, but it is 
not the nearest material for object-teaching. Does not the child direct his 
eyes first to things around him, to furniture, plants, animals, &c., before he 
directs tliem to his own person ? to colors and forms rather than to his 
limbs aTul their movements ? Not merely tlie object in itself, but the appli- 
cation of it in pointing out and naming the different parts of the body, a 
mere mass of names, the situation of the different parts and exclamations 
of wonder about them, the connection and use of the limbs, &c., is not 
a lessen conformable to nature. If Pestalozzi's scholars repeated — the 
mouth is under the nose, the nose is over the mouth, and similar remarks, 
the material gain for the children must have been like that of the peasant 
when he threshes empty straw. The mistake of that experiment time and 
progress has swept away. Pestalozzi's scholars soon went on in a more 
natural manner, and struck out the following sequence : schoolroom, fam- 
ily, house, house-floor, the sitting-room, the kitchen, the ground, the cellar, 
the yard, the habitation, the city, the village, the garden, the field, the 
meadow, the wood, the water, the atmosphere, the sky, the season, the 
year and its festivals, man, body and soul — God. 

Others endeavored to add essentially similar material in the course of the 
year. This instruction in and from nature, which developed continually into 
thoughtful intuition and intuitive thinking, and unfolded the power of 
speech in every aspect, from the simplest forms up to poetical ones and to 
song, — in short, which took captive the whole child in his intuition, his 
thinking, feeling, and willing, and enticed him to self-activity, seemed to 
certain inspired pupils of Pestalozzi to be materially and formally so im- 
portant that they declared a special place for it in their plan of instruction 
to be quite insufficient, and that it was the all-important CENTKE and sup- 
port, with wholesale condemnation of the material aim of reading and 
writing in the first school-year. With object-teaching as the common 
foundation, drawing, writing, sounding the letters (lautiren), reading, de- 
claiming, singing, exercises in grammar and composition, geometry, 
arithmetic, domestic economy, natural science — up to religion, were to be 
developed in a natural way. 

The Vogel Schools in Leipzig have sought to realize these high ideas. 

It must indeed be confessed that these ideas can be realized in the hands 
of a teacher who is furnished with rich pedagogical experience, who has a 
profound understanding of his mother-tongue in grammatical and aesthetic 
relations, and who, above all other things, has preserved his childlike dis- 
position. Such a teacher will succeed in reaching this summit of educa- 
tional art founded on the great law of human development from unbroken 
unity up to tlie unfolding of principles into their reunion in a still higher 
unity ; and he will, in all probability, do more in the two first school-years 
to bring the children farther on, to lay a wise and correct foundation of 



426 OBJECT TEACHING. BUSSE. 

culture, than if he began according 'to the old practice, with separate 
branches of instruction from the first hour. But whether it is possible to 
fix the central point in a series of normal words, which, planned on a one- 
sided principle, are yet expected to serve the most varied principles, is 
more than questionable. 

One of the most imjjortant testimonies to the place and value of object- 
teaching, is Grassmann, who, in his " Guide to Exercises in Speaking and 
Thinking," as the natural foundation for the sum-total of instruction, con- 
fesses himself friendly to this high culture. He says : " The first exei-cises in 
language must be in conversations, which are to make the children acquaint- 
ed with the things of the external world, their properties, their relations 
and connections, and lead them to receive this outward world correctly 
into themselves, to portray it again, to shape it, and to make an inward 
representative world of it which will exactly correspond to the outer ; also 
to guide them to readiness in speech, especially upon the objects of the 
senses." In later times, Richter (of Leipzig) has described this standpoint 
in the most striking manner in his prize treatise upon Object-Teaching. 

Testimonies have likewise been given to the opposite view. Based upon 
the predominating formal aim of object-teaching, together with the sug- 
gestion of postponing the material aim of reading and writing, and the 
duty and right to handle every subject and to strive at every step for the 
whole in the quite antiquated maxims of the word method and the culti- 
vation of the memory, they have not merely left out the object-teaching to 
this extent, but have stricken it especially and wholly from the progi-amme 
of lessons, and have tried to prepare the same fate for it as was decided 
upon for the abstract exercises in thinking. 

For two decades has resounded from that side the saying : no indepen- 
dent object-teaching but in connection with the Reader. 

Reasons : 

a. The object of observation {Anschauung) and conversation upon it is 
for the most part too prosaic to the child's circle of thinking and ideas to 
give any exciting elements of knowledge. 

6. The artistic systematic treatment of objects, and the specialties to be 
sought out in every individual thing, (size, parts, situation, color, form, 
use,) is a torment to children and teachers. 

c. The desire that children should already speak upon whole proposi- 
tions is opposed to the way and manner in which backward-speaking chil- 
dren improve and enrich their speech. They need in the beginning more 
sinrjle words and expressions for things and actions which they perceive, 
rather than little propositions which they may repeat like parrots. 

d. If we wish to help the thinking and speaking of the young, we need 
no special objects lying around ; but the means of help and culture lie in 
instruction, in speech and reading, and in biblical history. 

e. Our object-teaching was only an hour of gabble, a training without 
any special value. The judgment of another voice is : "If it was meant 
that tlie object- teaching should belong specially or strikingly only to the 
earlier years of development, or should serve only for the elementary 



OBJECT TEACHING. BUSSE. 427 

material of teaching, there lies at the foundation of this conception a 
false idea of the nature of man, as well as a false idea of what 
man has to appropriate for the development and nourishment of his 
morally spiritual nature. Insight belongs to thinking as warmth belongs 
to the sunliglit. Where it is wanting to the thinking, the pulse-beat of 
sjihitual life is wanting. The method of insight mfist show itself power- 
fully for the development and exercise of the mental activity during the 
whole period of teachtng. Object-teaching is to be brought into requisition 
in every stage of learning." 

Beauiiful and true as these words sound, they are yet one-sided. Do 
those, then, who wish to recommend independent object-teaching mis- 
understand and deny the necessity and worth of teaching by intuition ? 
By no means. Reading, writing, counting, memorizing, singing, biblical 
stories, are the departments of instruction of the elementary classes. It is 
not contradictory to unite and sprinkle in e.vercises in thinking, observing, 
and speaking, and above all to do this lovingly and with power. Yet how 
is it with the progressive ordering of this physical {realen) fundamental 
knowledge ? Does not our object-teaching bring Its order with it in the 
most natural manner, while the exercises in observation and in language, 
in this addition to the primer and the reader, have a great dispersive 
power, a want of design, an instability, and dissipating, of the mind ? 

What Volter says is scarcely more than an empty phrase : " What a 
pupil already knows, what is not new to him, what he learns without in- 
struction, is not the object of his curiosity, and consequently cannot be the 
means of awakening his mental power." 

But the object-teaching will reach several ends at once: It joins on its 
material to what is already known, adds something new and interesting to 
this material for culture, so that the mind is excited and awakened, called 
into activity, and its circle widened. It would be indeed a misconception 
and a fi.iilure if we should talk with the little ones about nothing but what 
they already know and have heard and felt. We would have no hold of 
them, it would be flat and uninteresting, and would only get them to sleep. 
No one would designate this as the object-teaching we so highly prize. 

The famous Prussian Regulation of October 3d, 1854, expresses itself 
plainly in regard to object-teaching : 

" Since all the instruction is to be based npon observation, and must be 
used as well for thinking as for speaking, abstract instruction in observation, 
thinking, and speaking, is not in place in the elementary school of a single 
class." 

Goltzsch, as the one interpreter of the Regulations, sees in object-instru.';- 
tion only " empty, unessential exercises in thinking and speaking, and 
puts in its place memory-cramming. The seizing, imitating, and appro- 
priating of worthy and rich thoughts presented in fit material, in excellent 
spoken expression, with which the child must busy himself long and re-i 
peatedly, according to the nature of the thing, leads him yet unpractised in 
thinking, and especially the child poor in words, farther on in his thought 
and speech-forming than the tedious and wearisome exercises in his own 



428 OBJECT TEACHING. BUSSE, 

thinking upon all sorts of dry stuff which is adapted neither to work ex- 
citingly upon his thinking powers nor his feelings." 

The words sound sophistical, for they seem to be directed against the 
long rejected exercises in thinking, while they really mean object-teaching. 

The better interj)reter of the Regulation, Vormann, rich in experience, 
restores object-teaching through a back door, when he says, " It is abso- 
lutely necessary (that is, under all circumstances) to have conversations 
with children to a certain extent, and of a certain kind, as they usually can 
neither speak coherently themselves nor understand the coherent speech of 
the teacher. This is because they need to be made susceptible of further 
instruction, whether oral or from the book. But these conversations must 
not be about abstractions like space and number ; they must be about real 
objects in their immediate surroundings." 

" Some cultivation in thinking and speaking is one of the first and most 
indispensable requisitions," says Goltzsch, thus contradicting himself, if a 
real instruction in reading is to be possible, and if any instruction is to an- 
swer its aim. 

A methodical man. Otto, of Miihlhausen, {Allgem. Schulzeitung, 
Jultheft, 1842,) rather arrogantly allows himself to perceive that, " Intelli- 
gent exercises in observation have been organized into a certain teaching of 
objects, but the practical part of this is nothing else but domestic economy, 
natural science, geometry, counting, &c., in their elements. There is no 
reality in it as a particular subject. Now follow the evidence that we only 
see and look into, that which we have known and understood, and from 
that is inferred the strange assertion that it is not the observation, and 
consequently not the object-teaching, which helps to correct representa- 
tions and conceptions, but language, and especially book-language." 

We will let Mr. Otto take the second step before he has taken the first, 
and rather hold to the sayings of Gdthe, the master of language: — 

" I think also from out of the truth, but from out of the truth of the five 
senses." 

" Nature is the only book that ofi'ers great things of intrinsic worth on 
all its leaves." 

" I am the deadly enemy of empty words." 

" I must go so far, that every thing must be known from observation, 
and nothing by tradition or name." 

In gigantic proportions by the depth of his grasp above the afore- 
mentioned opponents of object-teaching stands the Bavarian school- 
counsellor, Kiethammer ; and we could make no reply to that^witty censur- 
ing voice, if we did not know that in spite of all, that there is an 
object-teaching which, imparted with vivacity on the part of the teacher, is 
suited in full measure to the nature of the child, and to the material, so far 
as the child has relation to it ; and if we had not a hundred times had living 
evidence how this instruction works when a skilful hand makes use of it, 
how the class are all eye and ear, how the children live in it, and how 
eagerly they look forward to these hours as their most delightful ones. 

On the contrary, it makes a sad impression wh'^n this contemporary of 
Pestalozzi confesses to the following views: 



OBJECT TEACHING. BUSSE. 429 

" The only exercises in intuition, which are essential as an artistic 
direction of the mind in every kind of first instruction, are those on ohjects 
of the inner world, which are not like those of the outer world, indepen- 
dent of the mind itself, but must first be brought to view. These exercises 
must begin early, before the mind loses its pliability to them by the pre- 
ponderating influence of the outside world ; and it is, therefore, a double 
loss to fill up this season of formation with outside things which can off'er 
nothing to the mind so long as it is not ripe for profound contemplation, 
and yet, which take up, unavoidably, such a broad span of our lives. 

" Exercise of observation of spiritual subjects, as the earliest instruction, 
is nothing else but the exercise of memory. 

" For the independent observation of intellectual subjects, that is, for 
intellectual comprehension of the world of ideas, the youthful mind is not 
yet ripe ; it needs to be much more exercised first. But this exercise 
requires that, before all things else, it shall learn to fix intellectual objects, 
and bring them into view. For that, it is necessary that they become 
objective ; they will become so when stated in words, in the expressions in 
which they have received form by devout and spiritual-minded men. To 
accept ideas in this objective form, is called, bringing spiritual subjects to 
the intuition ; and in memorizing such expressions, the problem for the 
beginning of instruction is consequently solved." 

It is only astonishing to us that Piiethammer does not propose for this 
process of objectiving (of bringing spiritual subjects to the intuition) the 
language of the republic of letters, Latin, as was the custom a hundred 
years ago. A compromise is no longer possible here. 

The memory-cram is to solve the problem of a natural educational 
instruction. The " word method " is to be mind-forming ; mechanism and 
death are to be called life ! 

Ratichius, Comenius, Franke, Rousseau, Basedow, Rochow, Pestalozzi, 
have lived and striven in vain. 

" Hold fast what thou hast, that no man may take away thy crown," says 
Scripture ; and ol-ject-teaching is such a crown. 

But to take the medium between the extremes is our task. 

We cannot follow the idealist of object-teaching so far as to grant him, 
at once, the exclusiveness he desires for this foundation, because the 
pedagogic endowment, presupposed for its success, which extols the 
handling of the material to the point of art, is found only in the rarest 
cases; and also, because we must take into account the demands of parents 
and relatives upon the schools. For, in the very first school year they 
follow the development of the child with disproportioned interest, and base 
the measure of their judgment upon his progress in reading, writing, and 
arithmetic. Still less will we reject all object-teaching, but will demand for 
the sake of its personal aim, that it shall be made the underpinning, and 
retaining the principle of the intuitive method in all domains and with all 
kinds of material, and the handling of all the branches of instruction, as of 
an organic whole, that it shall be intrusted, at least three or four times a 
week, for two hours at least, not to the hands of the youngest, most inex- 



430 OBJECT TEACHING. BUSSE. 

perienced teacher, man or woman, but to the most skilful, practical, and 
experienced. 

In this view of ours the majority of the schools in Germany, at this 
period, agree. 

The more the material for the exercises in observation and language in 
the first school years is selected in reference to the most childlike demands, 
and the more adapted to their minds, the more exciting to independent 
action are the exercises, the more will the child show earnestness in observ- 
ing, and the better judgment will he form about things, circumstances, ap- 
pearances ; the more likely will he be to judge correctly how and what 
they are in themselves, and what connection they have with life itself. The 
endeavor should not be to urge the children into all kinds of physical 
knowledge in a dry and meagre manner, but to enrich them with such 
knowledge whose ample material for the purpose of instruction leads to 
good strong fundamental principles. These should be wisely limited (the 
introduction into all possible physical knowledge being kept in view), as a 
check upon vague and confused wandei'ing. 

Instruction gains in contents and value when it handles in good order a 
worthy, comprehensive, and able material, and rises into independent ob- 
ject-teaching in the first school years. 

Different Kinds of Intuitions for Object Teaching* 

1. Sensuous intuitions : not given merely mediately through the senses, 
but immediately ; outward objects. 

2. Mathematical intuitions : representations of space, time, number, and 
motion ; also belonging to the outward world, not directly given by the 
senses, but mediately. 

3. Moral intuitions, arising out of the phenomena of virtuous life in 
man. 

4. Beligious intuitions, arising in the nature of man, whose sentiments 
relate him to God. 

5. Esthetic intuitions, from the beautiful and sublime phenomena of 
nature and human life, (including artistic representations.) 

6. Furehj human intuitions, which relate to the noble, mutual relations 
of man in love, fi\ith, friendship, &c. 

7. Social intuitions, which comprise the unifying of men in the great 
whole ; in corporations, in community and state life. The school cannot 
offer all these subjects of intuition according to their different natures and 
their origin, for it will not take the place of life ; it only supposes them, 
connects itself with them, and refers to them, but it points them out in all 
their compass, occupies itself with them, and builds up with them on all 
sides the foundation of intelligence. 

The sensuous intuitions relate to the corporeal world and the changes in 
it. The pupil must see with his own eyes as much as possible, must hear 

* We here add a beautiful resume of the intuitions as they were given by our old 
master Diesterweg in answer to the questions: "What intuitions? What shall we 
awakfn? Out of what fields, whence, shall they be taken?" "Let us look at the 
different kinds," he says; " let us enumerate them," 



OBJECT TEACHING. BUSSE. 431 

with his own ears, must use all his senses, seek out the sensuous tokens 
of things in their phenomena upon, under, and abov« the ground, in min- 
erals, plants, animals, men and their works, sun, moon, and stars, physical 
phenomena, &c. 

The mathematical intuitions are developed out of the sensuous by easy 
abstractions lying near at hand ; the representations of the expansion of 
space compared one with another ; the things of time one after another ; 
the representations of number — the how much; the representaUuns of 
change in space, and the progression of the same. The simplest of these 
representations are those of space ; the rest become objects of intuition 
by means of these, by points, lines, and surfaces ; in arithmetic, for ex- 
ample, points, lines, and their parts are the material of intuitions. 

The moral intuitions come to the pupils through their lives with their 
relatives, or in school through school-mates and teachers. These are natu- 
rally imcard intuitions, which are embodied in the expression of the coun- 
tenance, in the eye, and in the speech. The pupil's personal experience 
here, as everywhere, is the chief thing. Happy the child who is sur- 
rounded by thoroughly moral, pure men, whose manifestations lay in him 
the moral foundation of life. The moral facts of history are pointed out 
to him by the teacher in a living manner, by means of the living word of 
the eloquent lips and the feeling heart. 

To religious intuitions the child comes through the contemplation of 
nature, its phenomena and beneficent workings ; through the piety of his 
parents, the commands of the father and mother ; through the contempla- 
tion of the community in the house of worship; through religious songs 
in the school ; through religious instruction and confirmation in the school 
and church ; through religious-minded teachers and pastors ; through 
biblical stories, &c. 

JSsihetic intuitions are awakened by the sight of beautiful and sublime 
objects of nature (stars, crystals, sky and sea, rocky mountains, landscapes, 
storms, thunder-showers, flowers, trees, flowing rivers, &c.), and of objects 
of art (pictures and picture galleries, statues, gardens, products of the poet- 
ical art and of human speech). We can classify their specific diff'erences, 
calling them moral, aesthetic, &c., but I hold it better to place them in one 
category. The strong moral law, equally binding upon all men, is not 
included in this field, for its contents cannot be unconditionally required. 
That belongs to the/;-ee beautifully human development which is dependent 
upon conditions that are not attainable by every one. 

The so-called j>nre?(/ human intuitions are furnished by the nobly-formed 
humcai lives of individual men, whose characters proceed from the strong- 
est conceptions of morality and duty, from sympathetic afi"ections, friend- 
ship, love, compassion, and loving fellowship, and other shining phenomena 
of human life as they are met with in the more refined development and 
culture of lofty and pure men. Happy is the child who is in their sphere ! 
If ihe home has nothing to ofi"er in this respect, it is difficult to supply the 
want. Let the teacher do what is possible by the hold he has upon the 
school and by all his own manifestations. 

The social intuitions, that is, the social circumstances of men in a large 



432 OBJECT TEACHING. BUSSE. 

sense, are determined for the child by the manifestations of the community 
in the schools, in the churches, in the assemblies of the people, in public 
festivals, and especially by the stories in which the living insight of the 
teacher into the life of states, peoples, and warlike communities defines to. 
the scholar the best living representations of great deeds. 

Our early state's life, which was domestic, not public, was an obstacle to 
the growth of these intuitions, so important to development. How can 
he who has experienced nothing, understand history ? How can he who 
has not observed the people, make a living picture of its life ? Small re- 
publics have a great advantage in respect to the observation of public life 
and patriotic sentiment. Words, even the most eloquent, give a very un- 
satisfactory compensation for observation. The year 1848 has in this re- 
spect brought most important steps of progress. 

Prominent above all other considerations is the importance of the life, 
the standpoint, the intelligence, the character of the teacher, for laying the 
foundation of living observation in the soul, in the mind, in the disposition 
of the pupil. What the teacher does not carry in his own bosom, he cannot 
awaken in the bosom of another. It can be compensated by nothing else, 
if there is failure in him. The teacher must himself have seen, observed, 
experienced, investigated, lived and thought as much as possible, and should 
set up a model in moral, religious, aesthetic, and purely human and social 
respects. So much as he is, so much is his instruction worth. He is to his 
pupils the most instructive, the most appreciable, the most striking object 
of observation. 

The Immediate Aims of Ohjed-teaching. 

Thus far we have considered object-teaching in its relations to teaching 
in general. Now we must turn our attention to its immediate aims. 1st. 
Object-teaching may be made the special means of training the senses. 
Such teaching would consist of exercises in observation, in order to develop 
the latent strength of each sense, that of the eye in particular. 2d. The 
chief aim of object-teaching may be to develop forms of observation and 
the laws of thought. These exercises we may call exercises in thinking. 
3d. Object-teaching may have for its main purpose the development of lan- 
guage, and all the lessons therein may be exercises in speaking and writing. 
The proper thing to do is to unite sense-training, thinking, teaching, and 
language exercises, and work them together, — the great aim of object- 
teaching. The training of the senses lies at the foundation of all, and 
must be made the chief means of all teaching. 

But it must be conceded that an intelligent guidance to right seeing and 
hearing is a wonderful help. 

Thousands have eyes and see not ; ears, and hear not. Thousands go 
through a museum and come out none the wiser. They have in fact seen 
nothing, because they have not intelligence. Observation without repre- 
sentations and conceptions remain blind. Real exercises in observation 
without exercises in thinking are an impossibiHty. On the other side, 
exercises in thinking must work injuriously rather than usefully if they 
have not found in living observation a fountain of unconquerable interest. 



OBJECT TEACHING. BUSSE. 433 

And since it is a striking fact that no representation, no conception exists 
without a word, since we cannot think except in language, thoughtful ob- 
serving and observing thoughtfulness, in connection with a continuous 
development of the mother-tongue, is the chief aim of object-teaching.* 

To this aim, as soon as a child is able to write down a proposition, also 
to confirm to some extent what is expressed, which must be reached to- 
ward the end of the first school year, two subordinate aims are allied : 

1. Preliminary exercises in grammar in the systematic use of cases, of 
prepositions, and of adverbs of time and place, but above all of word-for- 
mations. 

2. Exercises in composition by writing down little groups of proposi- 
tions connected according to the sense. 



II. THE METHOD. 

The chief laws of the method are : 

1. Instruction by actual inspection. 

Life wakes up life. The real object is therefore to be shown before the 
picture of it, (if the secret of life does not work so attractively that thn in- 
struction becomes impossible; but in the cas:^ of living animals, a living 
stork or dog in the schoolroom abolishes the possibiHty of instruction, for 
the interest of the children is so powerful in the life itself that it does not 
objectivate the individual thing, which is thus forgotten.) 

Amons; pictures, the model takes the precedence of the drawing; among 
the drawings, the colored of the shaded; and the shaded again are to be. 
preferred to the linear drawing. 

Every object that is spoken of, and au their relations must stand out 
clear and defined before the outer sensuous and the inner mental observa- 
tion (or inspection) of the scholar, and on that account must be advanced 
from the real, sensuous, to the inner abstract inspection. 

There is nothing more aimless than object-teaching without actual obser- 
vation (inspection). The instruction can first bear justly and correctly the 
name of object-teaching and of the intuitive quality, when it is based 
upon the actual observation (inspection) of things or relations. What 
many words and long definitions will not efi'ect, will be effected by imme- 
diate observation (or inspection). 

Object-teaching, therefore, needs the begt use and application of the 
material of observation. The kindergarten justly uses little stafi's, sticks 
of various lengths, cubes of various kinds of wood, building boxes. The 
teachers of the lower classes in the elementary schools do right to show 
various objects, models made of wood or paper, plants in nature, or colored 
pictures of animals, plants, and human productions. Such apparatus for 
observation works in the most favorable manner upon the development of 
the children. In many ways the principle was good in the early object- 
teaching, but the observation defective ; they took care to impart knowl- 

* We turn wlioUy away from the little speaking-exercises which figure as a part of 
the first instructions in reading, and have only the outward aim of making clear and 
distinct, individual sounds, and cannot therefore argue with Luben, that otuect-teaching 
and the teaching of reading should form an undivided whole. 

28 



434 OBJECT TEACHING. BUSSE. 

edge, but made too many words, and neglected the apparatus. Since all 
recognition or unde.vstanding of things proceeds from observation, is 
founded upon incentives to it, upon perceptions and inspection, and in the 
mental work already proceeds from observations gained, it is above all 
things important that dear and correct observation be attained by means 
of real things. An object-teaching without apparatus for observation is 
like a house without a foundation. 

Instruct by means of observation while you are aiming at the waking up 
of the inner sense. As soon as you have attained a little whole, within an 
hour, convince yourself of the condition of the observation (or inspection) 
thus gained, before you put away the object or the picture of it, in order to 
let the child re-produce what he has gained. 

2. Go from the easy to the difficult. 

a. Then, from the known to the unknown, from the near to the distant. 

Go on and add something to the observations which you know the child 
has made, and when you have united all these, widen the image as fast as 
the comprehensive power of the child will allow you to do so. It must not 
be a question here of setting up a special way as a generally desirable one. 
Whether one places the room in the foreground, and passes out from the 
schoolhouse, in ever wider circles up to the sky, with the sun, moon, 
and stars, or whether one looks upon the year, with its phenomena, as the 
nearest real thing, and adds to the changes of the seasons the material 
which nature and culture offer, it is all the same ; both may be excellent ; 
evjerything depends upon the handling. 

6. Go from the simple to the complex ; then from single objects to two 
and several, that the acts of comparison and discrimination may come into 
play. Then let more objects come into the group. Groups form at last a 
collected image. 

Go also in language from the simple to the complex ; from naked pro- 
position to the widened, connected-compound, abbreviated propositions, &c. 

c. Go from the concrete to the abstract. Proceed from the contemplation 
of the sensuous signs, before you draw upon the higher laws of thought. 
Do not apply foundation and consequence, or even condition, if cause and 
effect have not previously been made clear. 

Go first from the reaZ, then from the possible and necessary; first the 
individual thing, then the j^articular thing, then the general thing. 

3. Give in each hour, if possible, a little ichole in contents and form. 
Work out every lesson in writing, for only so can you satisfy this kind 

of instruction in which contents and form are equally important and must 
develop themselves symmetrically ; thus only can you know to be perfected 
what you have already given, what you are now giving, and what you wish 
to give next ; then this instruction, like no other, will show you its forma- 
tive reaction. But be cautious not to overstrain the child in your strivings 
to round off and complete his power. Instruct according to the nature of 
the material, but instruct also according to the nature of the child. 

4. Use poetry in the service of this instruction. 

An infinite numjber of the most beautiful poems offer themselves as if 
spontaneously, as flowers of contemplation. You will in years have the 



OBJECT TEACHING. BUSSE. 435 

richest variety ; and do not forget, when you lay this instruction before your- 
self and build it up as a lohole, that it is poetry which seizes and ennobles 
the man — the whole man. 

5. Use conversation. 

As to the outer form of the method, no instruction offers so much scope 
for exciting richly compensating conversation as this. Obviously, as in 
every catechism (Socratic method), there is given back, from sentence to 
sentence, a clear group of well-arranged observations, in the most naturally 
connected principles possible. Thus the teacher has the richest opportunity 
to introduce in a living manner, from-time to time, little poems and stories. 

III. IMPORTANT A^RITINGS AND AIDS FOR OBJECT-TEACHING. 

1. Easy Directions for Intelligent Instruction in the Oerman Language, 
including Speaking, Drawing, Reading and Writing, Observation by 
Inspection and Understanding. By W. Harnisch. Breslau, 1839. 

This pamphlet, which is specially a guide to the first instruction in lan- 
guage, belongs here, because it at the same time contains exercises in 
observation and speaking. The first section of the second part treats of 
them : — 1. The beginning of this instruction ; 2. To know and to name 
objects ; 3. The counting of things ; 4. The parts of things ; 5. Color ; 
6. Form and situation ; 7. Size ; 8. Sound ; 9. Feehng, smell, and taste ; 
10. Prime material of things, circumstance, and use ; 11. The arranging 
and order of things; 12. Cause and effect; 13. Necessity and arbitrari- 
ness, means and aims; 14. Representation and sign; 15. Surroundings 
and relations ; 16. Summary of the foregoing in one whole. 

The author's view of the value and place of this instruction may be seen 
in the following remarks : 

" The exercises in observation contain not merely many germs, which 
may develop into godliness (religion), but almost the beginnings of all 
other objects of instruction ; they form the roots of instruction. Think- 
ing especially cannot exist without them, and without thinking there is no 
instruction in language properly so called. The exercises in observation 
must there, as everywhere, take the precedence of exercises in thinking 
and understanding. 

" Exercises in thinking and understanding without exercises in observa- 
tion are plants without roots. We see this in common life. For the more 
man has seen and experienced, the more all-sided are his thinking-powers ; 
and all exercises in understanding which have proceeded only out of the 
forms of the understanding without insight or reality, we are accustomed 
to call by the contemptuous name of school-tvisdom." 

2. Guide to Exercises in Thinking and Speaking as the Natural Founda- 
tion/or General Instruction; particularly for the First Instruction in 
Language in the People's Schools. By F. H. G. Grassjian. With three 
Copperplates. Second edition. Berlin, 1834 : by G. Ileimer. 

This is a desirable treatise " upon the natural treatment of instruction in 
language in the people's schools ; and upon its connection with the other 
subjects of instruction in these schools." We point out the chief thoughts 
as far as they touch upon our subject. 



436 OBJECT TEACHING. BUSSE. 

Reading is not to be the first or beginning of instruction in the school. 
The objection to this beginning is based upon the aversion which children 
have to learning their letters. Natui'e has decreed that in the first years 
of hfe the child shall receive and picture to himself the outer sense-world, 
and that the inner spiritual life shall be awakened by occupation with sen- 
suous things, till the time comes when this inner spiritual life and impulse 
shall be itself the object of contemplation. This development by means of 
the outward world has not ended when the child enters the school. 

The inner world of representation needs an outer world in which it may 
embody itself — language or speech. The representation pictures itself 
outwardly by means of the word, and thereby becomes a communicable 
representation, and this representation first attains thereby its definite, 
perfected existence. By means of language, the child arrives at the intel- 
ligent recognition of the objects around him and of their relations to each 
other. 

Writing is a picture of speech, and by this (indirectly) a picture of the 
inner representative world of man.* So as man is to learn to know the pro- 
totype earlier than the image, especially if there does not exist between 
the two a natural and necessary, but an arbitrary connection (our letters 
are to be looked upon as signs arbitrarily chosen), the child must first 
learn to speak before it learns to read. If we connect this with what has 
gone before, it follows that : 

The first instruction in language must consist of conversations which 
make the children acquainted with the things of the outward world, their 
properties and mutual relations, and give them the opportunity to learn to 
speak of them correctly, intelligently, and significantly. 

These exercises in thinking and speaking are to be the common trunk 
from M-hich all other objects of instruction are to branch out as twigs. In 
regard to the material, it must contain the elements of all 'the single objects 
of the instruction ; in regard to form, it must be so arranged, as far as pos- 
sible, that the children shall learn not merely parts of speech, but all kinds 
of words, and these in their various forms, inflections, derivations, and 
combinations, and in an easy way. The language itself must not be an 
object of contemplation, but a collection of words must be made, out of 
which in future the general rules and laws of the language can be developed. 

In the arrangement of the material, the progress must be in regular 
steps from the nearer to the more distant ; from the known to the less 
known, and from this to the quite unknown ; from that which falls directly 
upon the senses to that which is first found by the help of the accompany- 
ing activity of the understanding. 

If the instruction in reading and writing goes side by side with this from 
the first entrance of the children into the school, one hour a day, or from 
three to four hours a week, should be devoted to this object-instruction. 
Contents : 1. Names of things ; 2. Whole, and parts of the whole ; 3. 
Number of things ; 4. Place, position, attitude ; 5. Light, color ; 6. Form ; 
7. Size ; 8. Direction ; 9. Sound ; 10. Perceptions by feeling, smell, and 
taste; 11. Rest and motion ; 12. Connection of things ; 13. Time. 

The whole is brought out partly in a catechetical way, partly by prin- 



OBJECT TEACHING. BUSSE. 437 

ciples, which are to be discovered by the developing conversation. This is 
a model work and a master-work, — actual head-work, the most advanced 
course of teaching-exercises in observation and experience to be found in 
our literature (of the present time). No teacher should be without it. 

But whether the whole can be carried out in the elementary school, as 
the majority of these schools now are, we doubt ; indeed, our verdict is 
against it. There must be rarely favorable circumstances secured, if a 
teacher, as the Professor hopes, shall be able to carry the child through 
this course by the end of the ninth year of his age. We must apply the 
wise view which the author makes apparent for the carrying out of his 
opinion upon instruction in language, and also upon these exercises in 
speaking and thinking. He says : " Many weighty and well-founded recol- 
lections and doubts recur to the mind, which, in view of the reality of exist- 
ing relations of life, and of prevailing and dominant customs, opinions, and 
judgments of the present generation, may easily be advanced, and are well 
known to every practical schoolman. No one can feel it more keenly than 
I do, or know it better than I do ; as it is on account of the well-founded 
existence of such recollections of long standing that I require, before the 
introduction of this plan, the condition that it shall be freed from all the 
limitations which arise out of the present condition of things." 

But with full conviction we agree with the following opinions : 

" In view of the plan which we introduce, it is of the highest importance 
that we carry in our souls an ideal of .every occupation which one has to 
execute, of every office which is to be filled, how it should be done, and 
how it would be done, if every hindrance and disturbance were out of the 
way, and if every power which is brought into play worked as perfectly as it 
can by virtue of its nature. To let such an ideal enter wholly into life as its 
guide, rarely ever happens, since the reality of life meets it at every step and 
on every side, limiting and destroying its influence ; yet the strivings of 
those who wish to better things must have their roots in the ideal, and 
must find in it the goal of their activity. For whoever carries it within 
his breast, and seeks to approach it more and more, as far as circumstances 
and relations permit him to do so, takes care so to arrange and form every 
individual influence that it may correspond to the image before him, and 
thus prepare for the future presentation of the whole, and he seizes every 
opportunity to form in others the correct view of this subject. He thus 
brings insight and skill into all his acts, while he who has not such a goal 
before his eyes cannot, with all his best efforts, and the most indefatigable 
industry, demand the best thing of himself, and often loses it." 

This course of instruction is to be contemplated as such an ideal for the 
elementary schools in general. Would that the teachers might comprehend 
it in its essence, and approach it in fact and truth ! The most earnest study 
of this work is just what is needed for the elementary method. 

But for those teachers who are obliged to limit themselves to a less 
thorough course of thinking and speaking exercises, we recommend the 
following works (certainly with a few exceptions) of Fuhr & Ortmann. On 
account of the necessary attention to the existing state of things every- 
where, with rare exceptions, we have placed the aim and the standard of 



438 OBJECT TEACHING. BUSSE. 

these exercises lower, in order that the attempts made to realize them shall 
be really successful. 

3. Instruction in the Little Children's School ; or, the Beginning of In- 
struction and Formation in the People's Schools. Fourth improved edi- 
tion. Bielefeld, 1843. Published by Belhagen & Klasing. 

This pamphlet proposes a course of instruction : (1) which is throughout 
practical and easily applied ; (2) which chooses its material out of the imme- 
diate surroundings of the school-children, and avoids all costly and foreign 
apparatus ; (3) it is worked out with the utmost clearness and perspicacity, 
so that it will easily enable every teacher to introduce the exercises in ob- 
servation and speaking into the school. 

Contents of the First Section. Knowledge of Objects in the School-Room. 
— 1st Exercise : Naming and describing these objects. 2d Ex. : Compar- 
ison and discrimination. 3d Ex. : Contemplation of definite bodies. 

Second Section. First Elements of Natural History and Domestic Econ- 
omy. — 1st Ex. : The human body. 2d Ex. : The plants of the home gar- 
den. 3d Ex. : Domestic animals. 4th Ex. : The house, oth Ex. : The 
dwelling. 6th Ex. : The elements. 

Third Section. Preliminary Exercise in Drawing and Writing. 

Fourth Section. Instruction in Reading. 

Fifth Section. Beginning of Arithmetic. 

Sixth Section. Beginning of Instruction in Singing. 

Seventh Section. Exercises in Memory or Tunes for Head and Heart. 

Eighth Section. Furthering Instruction, and School Aims in general. 

The individual exercises are offered not in the catechetical, but in a more 
familiar form; methodical remarks, hints, and views are given in them. 

In consonance with the above-mentioned didactic rules, the objects are 
not to be treated according to the common conceptions of size, form, color, 
number, &c., but every subject according to its own peculiarities, or elemen- 
tarily, or, as Herr Griibe says, organically. (See Griibe's Inst, in Arith.) 

4. Methodical Gtiide for Exercises in the Cultivation of Language in the 
' Lower Class of the Elementary School. By C. G. Ehrlich, Director of 

the Seminary of Soest, in Nassau. Second improved edition, 1839. Fr. 
Heischer, in Leipzig. 

The author shares with others the view that reflection and the art of 
speaking must be awakened and stimulated specially in the lower class of 
the elementary school, since the neglect of a deep, firm foundation for it 
during the whole school season, can never be made good afterwards ; but 
he difi'ers from other writers and teachers upon the subject in thinking that 
the exercises in speaking should be exercises in the language itself. Authors 
before mentioned give precedence to exercises in speaking, observation, 
and thinking, and postpone those in language, but employ the thinking and 
speaking powers upon the materials of the surrounding world. Herr 
Ehrlich also agrees in this when he adds his exercises upon the immediate 
experiences and observations of the child ; but he takes into consideration 
in this the knowledge of language, in what way will become clear wlien wo 



OBJECT TEACHING. BUSSE. 439 

point out the chief contents of his treatise, and sketch the characteristic 
signs of this treatment of the material. The book is divided into two 
parts, the theoretical and practical. 

First Part. Aim and requisitions of the exercises in language in the 
lower class.. 

Second Part. Examples : 

(1) The elementary school is to rise up from below. 

(2) Exercises in language the special means. 

(3) Extent of the same. 

(4) Comparison between the conversation of the mother and the teacher. 

(5) Chief requisites of such exercises : a. Course of teaching, and of 
some material ; b, Preface to the conversation ; c. General choice of the 
material; d, Language of the teacher; e, Superintendence of the conversa- 
tion ; f, Means of exciting emulation ; g, Outward arrangements. 

The knowledge of the forms of speech (in a practical way) in which it is 
brought to the consciousness of the children, leads the author into the 
consideration of the contents and order. 

He gives his view in the following precepts, which are worth considering : 

First. " If you lead the child to thoughtful seeing, you do much more for 
him than if you bring him forward in reading and writing. His reading 
and wricing without thinking are worthless. Men make the least use of 
these arts " (is it not so?) " but a really seeing eye, a really hearing ear, 
and a thinking miiid, every one needs every moment of his life." (Does it 
injure thousands, nay, millions of men to read?) "1. Because they do not 
use this art very generally in life, or they unlearn it again even when they 
have once learned it in the regular way. 2. Because the books which are 
put into their hands contain much that is useless, much that is untrue, dis- 
torted ; obsolete views, superstitious opinions, &c. Hence there are re- 
gions in Germany where learning to read is of questionable advantage ; for 
it may be used for the planting and sustaining of superstition and similar 
perverseness." (Why not also for the destruction of the same ; and why 
does Catholicism strive against the common-school law?) "For it is not by 
reading that man cultivates himself. It depends upon what he reads, 
and his capability of reading with understanding." 

Second. " The effect upon the cultivation of the mind of learning to speak 
is very clear, for the following reasons : By knowing the names of things, 
and of their properties, the attention is often for the first time drawn to the 
things themselves. In the same manner, also by the varieties of the names 
to the varieties of the things ; for instance, the different kinds of the color 
of green — grass-green, mountain-green, apple-green, finch-green, bottle- 
green, bronze-green, sea-green, &c. Also, by means of language our atten- 
tion is drawn in early childhood from lower to higher conceptions, (for 
instance, ' The goose is a bird.') By naming these, we hold firmly in the 
mind representations and conceptions of things, and learn to think in lan- 
guage." 

Second Part. This portion of the book is the most important, viz. : The 
Examples. (1) Conversations with children from six to seven years of 



440 OBJECT TEACHING. BUSSE. 

age : two conversations with new-comers ; the sunxtundings in the school- 
room ; handwork; the kitchen ; domestic aniffials ; words of endearment 
(diminutives) ; abstract conceptions ; single verbs. 

(2) Conversations with the whole lower class, or with children from 
seven to ten years. Preparation of the teacher for exercises in speakinsf. 

These conversations are rich in instruction : 1. Because they are so com- 
municated, not as if they were written out before the hour, but as if they 
were really held in the school of the seminary by the author. 2. Because 
they are to be looked upon as a model in a wide sense of the word (not 
like the asses-bridge, to be used slavishly). Herr Ehrlich is a master in 
conversation with children. Therefore this book is a gift to be thankful 
for. Having proceeded from the very soil of the school, in the strongest 
sense of the word, the teacher can learn from it how to make living and in- 
structive conversation with children, since an old master has done it before 
him. Remarks which join the single examples unite the second part of 
the book with the first, and the results follomng each talk given in a 
review show what should be reached in the single talks. 

The author .believes, as we do, in the use of signs. A wave of the right 
hand means that all the scJiolars shall speak ; a circular motion with the 
left hand (a zero) a full answer. To wink means repeat the whole. We 
hope the reader will not consider these as puerilities. 

We are sorry that want of space forbids us laying before the reader 
one of these instructive conversations, with all its outward and inward in- 
trospections ; but we recommend this thoroughly practical treatise. 

6. Ouide to the Principles of Education and Instruction. By Denzel. 
Third Part, First Division, First Course : Object-Teaching for Children 
from 6 to 8 Years of Age. Stuttgart : Mezler, 1828. Third edition. 

The distinguishing or discriminating character of this course consists in 
the author's connecting the religious with the material and formal points 
of view, that is, the exercises in observation or introspection have the dis- 
tinct aim of undertaking to develop the religious consciousness. The 
author's caution and circumspection are well known. 

6. ScHLOTTERBECK : TJieoretical and Practical Handbook for the Instruc- 
tion of the First School Year. For Teachers and Female Educators just 
hegiiining. 1. Domestic Science in the Fii-st School Year. 2, First In- 
struction in Language, Reading and Writing. 3. Exercises for the 
Cultivation of the Senses. — Wismar, Rostock, and Ludwigsluft. Pub- 

,. lication house of the Hinstorff bookstore. 1868. 

We have here a work of great industry, arising out of a deep interest in 
the cause. Just on accoujit of its one-sidedness, it has an effect upon the 
present time. It follows Schlotterbeck in recommending " gymnastics of 
the senses " for the people's school, and at the end the " introduction of 
Froebel's kindergarten into the elementary classes." The views taken from 
Schlotterbeck are the following : 

1. The chief aim of object-teaching is the cultivation of the senses and 
of formal nature. 

"What object- teaching has hitherto striven for is not to be reached by 



OBJECT TEACHING. BUSSE. 441 

the means of the exercises proposed. It is only exercises of the senses, 
which are designed to give them a greater perfection for the correct com- 
prehension of the outward world, and to assist the mind of the child in its 
development through its perceptions. 

" The cultivation of the senses is to strengthen and support the whole 
instruction by giving efficiency to the organs of observation, and by the 
reception of new observations in the child's mind." 

2. Object-teaching must move in the field of the -world of the senses, 
and adjust it. 

3. For this aim the objects must be brought to the cliildren's view in their 
naked reality, and be treated objectively throughout. 

4. The representation of the object observed must also have its rights. 
It gives the best proof of the correctness of the comprehension of it. 

6. What has been observed can be represented by language. 

6. What has been observed can also be represented in a plastic form. 

7. By the cultivation of the organs of the senses, and by the plastic rep- 
resentation of the object, more is done for widening the child's circle of 
representation than by the most seai'ching exercises. 

8. Therefore, we desire to have cultivation of the senses in the school, 
and for the elementary class in especial, first, a yearly course of from four 
to five hours a week, which we designate by the once common name of object- 
teaching. After that time let it cease, not because the cultivation of the 
senses is then looked upon as perfected, but because it can be carried on 
at home, and the further instruction in the school must undertake wider 
culture. 

9. Object-teaching does not exclude exercises in language ; but these 
must not be the chief aim. 

10. Object-teaching need not be looked upon as the foundation of in- 
struction in physics, 

11. lleligious knowledge, so far as it allows itself to be mediated by ob- 
servation, does not belong to the domain of object-teaching. Object-teach- 
ing must be allowed to take the precedence of the religious element as 
little as of the instruction in language or natural science. It must move 
according to its nature on the domain of the sense-world, and fails wholly 
in its aim if the religious element is not the chief object. 

12. Object-teaching must not aim at clothing the material in a poetic 
form. " This would stand in direct opposition to its aim. By object-teach- 
ing the comprehension of the world of sense is indirectly imparted, the 
correct relation between cause and efiect, foundation and superstructure, 
life and death, is established, therefore the objects must be brought before 
the child in their naked reality, and be treated objectively by the teacher 
throughout. The living sense of the child will lay in poetry of itself, and 
abundantly enough where the ripened understanding sees only dead and cold 
material. Ileal poetry lies in nature itself, and is therefore given out by it 
at the same time wiih the objective comprehension," 

The course of teaching planned on the above principles is divided into 
three sections : 

1. Cultivation of the eye by the color, form and position, size and dis- 
tance, of bodies. 



442 OBJECT TEACHING. BUSSE. 

2. Cultivation of the ear by exercises in time and hearing. 

3. Cultivation of feeling by direct exercises in the cultivation of the 
senses of touch and taste ; and by exercises for attaining a greater security 
and solidity of the body, namely, by strengthening the limbs. 

This treatise is in quite the spirit of Froebel. The author plans the 
exercises which Frcebel had chiefly intended for the kindergarten for the 
first school-year of the elementary class. They are as excellent for the kin- 
dergarten, where they have proved themselves so well adapted for the cul- 
tivation of the senses and the development of the mind, as they are out 
of place in the school. Here the ground-principle must be firmly estab- 
lished ; the culture of the senses must be aimed at with suitable material. 
To aim at merely formal culture lies outside of it. What cultivation of the 
senses is to be reached in the school must come out of the contemplation of 
the objects of the object-teaching, primarily out of the contemplation of nat- 
ural bodies. From them the child learns their " colors, forms, and varie- 
ties," and every intelligent teacher goes back from this to ground colors and 
ground forms. By the " quantities " the instruction in arithmetic makes 
known the theory of forms and the instruction in drawing. For "cultiva- 
tion of the eje " the instruction is given by writing, drawing, scientific, geo- 
graphical, and mathematical observation ; for " cultivation of the ear," in- 
struction in speaking, reading, and singing ; for " cultivation of the hand/' 
writing, drawing, and handwork. Hence it happens that a great part of 
these exercises in our full school classes are not practicable, as, for exam- 
ple, the coloring of pictures, the cutting of paper, the building with cubes, 
the plaiting with strips of paper, the folding of paper, the pricking of fig- 
ures, the clay work, whittling of wood, the observation of forms of things 
at different distances and in different positions, &c. It is impossible for a 
teacher to watch all these exercises, and prevent the dangerous use of col- 
ors, scissors, knives, pricking-needles, &c. 

Besides this, the author places little value upon the spoken statement, but 
would use the exercises in language chiefly for the instruction in reading. 
But if the object-teaching is to sharpen the senses, and thereby excite the 
attention, it must also assist the development of language. Observation 
enchains and quickens the thiiddng power, and brings the judgment to the 
tongue, which fastens the same in a word. When the children have been 
accustomed by the object-teaching to see sharply and pi*ecisely the things 
brought to their contemplation and description, and, where the opportunity 
offers, also to hear distinctly and feel strikingly, the school certainly offers 
all it can to satisfy just claims. 

But the author is of the opinion that salvation lies only in Froebel, whose 
play-school must go into the people's school. We can look upon this only 
as a pedagogic eiTor. For the gymnastics of the senses, life must do the 
best, not the school-room with its bare walls. Finally, why sha'l we not 
use the tongue and the nose as chemistry does ? At the Vienna Exposition 
we really saw a whole series of innocent, variously smelling, and tasting, 
apparatus for object-teaching, designed for the elementary school. 

We cannot recommend the work for the object-teaching we defend, how- 
ever dear it may be to Froebel's scholars, who will find much in it that is 
stimulating. 



OBJECT TEACHING. BUSSE. 443 

7. Theoretical and Practical Handbook for Object-teaching, icith particU' 
lar reference to Elementary Instruction in Physics. Frederick Harder. 
Altona, 1867. Four editions. 

A book of such significant compass, which has lived through four edi- 
tions in twelve years, must have some value. This value lies in the correct 
and practical observations from which the author proceeds, and which he 
develops into a guide systematically executed, as well as rich and various 
in the material offered for the instruction. 

He gives the key to his work in the title. He is of the opinion that 
object-teaching, whose centre must be sought in physics, is not to be fin- 
ished in the elementary class, and on that account adds : 1. A course which 
shall give, after object-instruction proper, a second course, also designed for 
the underpinning, which works out the elements of physics with the scholars 
who have been mentally strengthened by object-teaching (in the space of 
another half-year). 

This course of instruction is essentially the well-known one. The author 
begins with the first conversation of tlie teacher with the fresh elementary 
scholars, then passes into the school with its contents, speaks of the same 
to the whole and to individuals, introduces comparisons of things in the 
Bchool-room, passes to the people in the school, then considers the school- 
house and teachers' dwelling-house, the occupants of the parental house, the 
dwelling-place, buildings, squares, streets, inhabitants. The sections, which 
make the specialty of the work, treat very practically of men, animals, and 
the plant world, and contain a preparation of instruction in geography and 
natural science. The work recommends itself by specially rich and richly- 
suggestive material, arranged in suitable sequence on methodical principles. 
The author is of the opinion that this instruction stands independently, 
and is to be stretched over the whole school life. 

8. Principles and Course of Teaching for Instniction in SpeaJdng and 
Beading. August Luben, German}', Director in Bremen. Third im- 
proved edition. Leipzig, 1868. 

Luben's writings should be intelligently studied by every elementary 
teacher. 

The practice of the author to connect object-teaching with reading and 
■writing is well known. Richter has energetically protested against this 
union, and we indorse the protest, while we think that the exercises in 
speaking, known to all, and v,'hich smooth the path to the sounding of the 
letters {lautircn), do not take the place of the object-teaching proper. Al- 
though the author does not consider merely the exercises in speaking, but 
also those in language, yet the object-teaching, which has its own aims and 
course, is not justly estimated. 

The aim of object-teaching Liiben also discusses briefly : 

1. To practise the child in correct seeing and contemplation. 

2. To enrich the powers of his understanding with worthy representations. 

3. To cultivate his judgment. 

4. To increase his readiness in language. 



444 OBJECT TEACHING. BUSSE. 

Many good things are given in the examples, and the little treatise, 
which, on account of its authorship, is an authority in the domain of instruc- 
tion in the mother-tongue, is worth reading. 

9. Ohjed-teacMng in the Elementary ScJwols. Represented according to 
its Aims, its Place, and its Means. By Gael Richter. Crowned prize- 
work. Leipzig, 1869. 

This treatise is a rich accession to the literature upon object-teaching. 
In a theoretic point of view it is the best Avork which exists upon that sub- 
ject. By the ideal which Richter would realize in object-teaching, he will 
gain many opponents without injury to the various opinions in practice. 
The work should be known to every elementary teacher, although it is only 
theoretical. Cultivation of the senses is one chief thing with the author. 
Schlotterbeck seems to have excited him much. It is now generally the 
laudable endeavor to enlarge the material of observation for the elementary 
classes as far as it is practicable, although on the other side the limit can 
easily be passed which protects it from extravagance. 

The rich contents of the book consist of a guide, three sections, and a 
review. The guide contains historical matter upon object-teaching, concep- 
tion of essence of observation, relation of observation to language, and 
importance of observation to the mental life. 

1. The first section speaks of the task of object-teaching, and paragraphs 
have the following titles : Condition of the Child's Mind before the School 
Age ; the School and its First Task ; Cultivation of Observation in Gen- 
eral; Scientific (real) Culture ; Cultivation of the Senses; Cultivation of 
Language ; Moral and Religious Culture ; Choice and Arrangements of the 
Objects for Object-teaching. 

2. The second section treats of the place of object-teaching, and is di- 
vided into four paragraphs: R.ejection of Object-teaching; Isolated Place 
of Object-teaching ; Connection of Object-teaching with Reading and Writ- 
ing ; the Vogel-Mcthod. 

3. The third section speaks of the means of object-teaching, and treats 
of the position of Objects of Instruction in Nature, Models and Pictures, 
Drawing and Measuring. 

This work contains no finished programme of object-teaching, but is a 
work upon that subject which cannot be read without lively interest, and 
which treats with extraordinary clearness the question of object-teaching, 
its place in other courses, and the means requisite for carrying it out. 
It will be of lasting use, and is urgently recommended. 

10. Object-teaching. Its History, its Place in the Elementary School, and 
its Methodical Treatment. By W. Ahmstrofj?. Langensalza, 1869. 

This is also a theoretical treatise of the same general character with that 
of Richter, but not so exhaustive. It recommends itself to the teacher by its 
simplicity and clearness. Object-teaching is, with this author, that instruction 
of the elementary classes in which single things are taken from the nearest sur- 
roundings of the pupils, observed by the senses, described, and thus brought 
to their comprehension. It must not be confounded with " instruction by 



OBJECT TEACHING. BUSSE. 445 

obsentition." And it must not be considered identical with exercises in 
thinking and speaking, with domestic economy, cosmology, and useful com- 
mon knowledge. All these subjects are kindred, but not in congruity. 

In his statement of the historical development of this instruction upon 
topics, the author goes back to Luther's and Melancthon's efforts, and draws 
treasures from the labors — 

1. Of Bacon: "Everything depends upon our never turning the eyes of 
the mind from things themselves and their images just as they are absorbed 
into us." 

2. Of Comenius : " The first connection of the thing with the knowl- 
edge of language." 

3. Of the Philanthropist : " The culture of the understanding must pro- 
ceed from actual inspection ; Physics {Realien) must be the chief objects of 
fundamental teaching." 

4. From Pestalozzi : " Observation is the foundation of all knowledge." 
After discussing these historical points, treatises which exclusively pursue 

the formal aim of development, for which the material need not be too vari- 
ous, he goes on to the exercises in understanding and thinking of Zerrener, 
Krause, Grassman, and finishes with Oraser, Diestericeg, Wurst, Scholz, 
and Hardsell, who combated the connection between the formal and scien- 
tific principle. 

The mission of object-teaching is fully shown by the psychological devel- 
opment. It is designed to raise the observations and representations al- 
ready in hand with the children into clearness, order, and consciousness, so 
as to help the pupils to a wealth of intuitions at the same time that they 
are using their senses : to excite their self-activity, and accustom them to a 
habit of attention; and out of the intuitions gained to develop conceptions, 
judgments, &c., and thereby to sharpen the understanding, put them in 
possession of book languag:, cultivate their sensibilities, and prepare thera 
for instruction in science {real). As means of object-teaching the author 
designates, chiefly, nature, man, God. He urges original, direct observa- 
tion, and only where the means for this are not present, or in natura, does 
he recommend pictures. 

The treatise answers the following questions : 

1. Where is the origin of object-teaching to be sought, and how has it 
developed itself in the course of time ? 

2. Wherein consists the problem of object-teaching ? 

3. What place in instruction shall it take ? 

4. By Avhat means are the alms Avhich it pursues to be reached ? 

While Richter makes object-teaching the all-ruling centre in the pro- 
gramme, Armstroff confines himself to Liiben's point of view, with whom 
object-teaching, reading, and writing, are to be united into one whole. 
Ai'mstroffs work is worth reading next to Richter's. 

11. Tlieoretico-practical Guide to Object-teaching for Elementary TeacJiers 
and Parents. By Carl Dambeck, School Director. Hamburg, 1869. 

A parallel treatise with Eichter's, but very valuable practically. 

It is divided into two parts, a theoretic, and a practical part. In the 



446 OBJECT TEACHING. BUSSE, 

theoretic part the author speaks of the aim, the method, the teacher, and 
the apparatus for object-teaching, which is with him the fundamental and 
preparatory instruction for the other branches. 

The practical part treats of the collection, grouping, and distribution of the 
material. The author closes with a sketch of a methodical course of object- 
teaching for two years. 

The first course for children from six to eight years of age groups the 
material for the four years which are to be used as designated. 

The second course arranges the material for children between eight and 
nine, according to psychological development and the branches of instruc- 
tion ; it also serves as preparation for instruction in language, for mathe- 
matics, the natural sciences, geography, history, religion, with mucli refer- 
ence to the capability of the children. It is hence made a material which 
for the greater part can be used in the middle course. 

In conclusion, the author enumerates the material of the instruction 
•which is necessary for the success of this department; namely, models^ 
mathematical bodies, a collection of the most important coins, the measures 
and weights of the country, minerals, fresh or dried plants, the fruits and 
seeds of the most important plants, animals either stuffed or preserved in 
spirits, products of industry, large single pictures, black or colored, a col- 
lection of the leaves and twigs of the most important plants. The author 
assigns an independent place for the object-teaching, and lets reading and 
writing follow next. In his limitation of the subject he agrees with Richter 
and Armstroff ; with them he assigns the place for it in the two or three 
first school years. 

AVe cannot deny that the work has proceeded from a vital interest as well 
for the subject as for childhood, and also shows long practice. It is original 
in spite of the fact that the idea of spreading the use of the material over all 
the years given to instruction, and of holding the child in living connection 
with nature all that time, is not in itself new. The little work is cordially 
recommended. 

12. Object-teaching for tlie Lower and Middle Classes of the People's 
School. By George Luz. Also Teaching and Blading Material for Ob- 
ject-teaching in the Loicer and Middle Classes. Wiesensteig, 1871. 

The first part of the book discusses the theory of object-teaching. In 
twelve sections the author treats the following rich contents : 

1. The origin of object-tea,ching, and its introduction into the people's 
school. 

2. Object-teaching as the first and preparatory instruction. 

3. Conception of object-teaching. 

4. Aims of object-teaching. 
o. Forms of object-teaching. 

6. OpjKinents of object-teaching. 

7. The working of independent object-teaching. 

8. The annexation of object-teaching to the reading-book. 

9. Characteristics of different readers for the middle class. 
10. Review of the programme of instruction of the author. 



OBJECT TEACHING. BUSSE. 447 

11. Treatment of object-teaching. 

12. Some examples of conversation. 

The second part is to be the reader for the use of pupils. 

The work is by a pupil of Denzel, but is distinguished by its extraoi'di- 
nary simplicity from the one to be noticed next, by Wrage. Not merely skill 
in the catechetical treatment of material constitutes the good teacher (and 
from pages 82 to 90 we find masterly conversations), but also his command 
of the material. But only he has command over his material who under- 
stands how to select it in reference to the nature of childhood ; and from 
this author wc learn to know his conceptions of a teacher, and a better 
could not be wished for; " the enemy of all shams, allflunkery ; the friend 
of simplicity, of sound discretion — in short, one %cho really knotos the 
nature of childhood" 

Of this loving absorption into the nature of childhood, the material for 
reading and the inculcation of princi])les in the infant is eloquent testimony. 
It is a preparatory book for the teacher in behalf of object-teaching, and a 
copious reader for the lower classes. The problem of how object-teaching 
can stand in the closest connection with the reader, and yet be indepen- 
dently progressive, is here solved in the happiest manner. What the teacher 
has hitherto observed and described, the children read after him, and thus 
reach two things : progress in understanding what they read, reading and 
repeating with feeling, and comprehension of what they have heard. 

13. Object-teaching in the People's School ; or, Observing, Tliinhing, SjjeaJc- 
ing, and Writing, as the Foundation for Physical Studies, for Style, and 
Grammar. By J. H. FuilK and J. il. Ortmann. In four double sheets. 
Four sheets of Object-teaching, interspersed with Sentences, Fables, 
and Stories, in Prose and Poetry, arranged according to the Four Sea- 
sons. Bound in with the Object-teaching, four sheets of Exercises, in all 
Styles, for all Classes, after the Preparatory Class in Grammar. Second 
enlarged and improved Edition. Dillenbui-g, 1873. 

According to this author, observation is the element and foundation of 
all knowledge ; and object-teaching, pursued according to its aim, is the 
only instruction that can be materially and formally truly preparatory and 
fundamental for the collected instruction of the people's schools, which can 
rest only upon the firm ground of observation. Object-teaching must strive 
for correct observation and attention, clear conceptions, correct expression 
of thoughts, acquisition of useful knowledge of practical things, and cul- 
tivation of feeling. A full supply of poetic material serves for the latter 
purpose and point of connection. 

Contents : In twenty conversations are, first, preparatory exercises oflered 
to the teacher, which aim at exciting the feelings of the child, so that it 
may be confiding and animated. Then the children are led on according 
to the principle, from the near to the remote, by the following cii'cles of ob- 
servation : School, house and yard, garden, meadow, field and wood. In 
order to give the best possible intuitive foundation for physical science, 
the animals in the family and yard are described, so that they are under- 
stood to be representati\'es, or types of the one, two and four-hoofed 



448 OBJECT TEACHING. BUSSE. 



animals, the beasts of prey, the insect-eaters, the rodents, the fowls, doves, 
swimming-birds, swamp-birds, singing-birds, and birds of prey. Then 
follows the contemplation of trees, shrubs, and herbs. 

The second part may be regarded as a complete course of natural his- 
torj-, and used with much benefit. 

The third sheet is peculiarly of Object-teaching. The second part of 
this treats of the premonitions of Spring in the plant world. Walk in 
the garden, and naming of the things found in it. Plants ; growth ; (as 
specialties, the snowdrops, the garden violets, daisies.) Then follows a 
premonition of Spring in the animal world (field-larks, stork, cuckoo, the 
white wagtail). Then the Spring itself; (the usher of Spring is the com- 
mon primrose.) At last, the fruit-garden (gooseberries, currant-bushes, 
cherry-trees, and damson-trees). In every lesson, the cultivation of the 
senses, of language, and of feeling is aimed at. By interspersed speeches, 
sentences, riddles, fables, tales, in prose and verse, the instruction con- 
tains the right nourishment for the understanding, the heart, and the life. 
A little volume is soon to follow this part, which will contain the rest of the 
material, so far as concerns the domain of natural history and physics, 
(mineralogy, domestic economy, and natural science.) The catechetical 
treatment of many of the lessons, lend, by their numerous suggestions, a 
peculiar value to the whole work. As to the rest, the author is of the 
opinion that the material offered in the school should not be used in a 
slavish manner, as it lies before the view. These materials offer much for 
the teacher, because they will excite him to studies and contemplations in 
Nature herself. 

Of the first three parts of this splendid work, only the two first lie 
before us upon object-teaching, and the first of the exercises in style ; a 
defiuitg judgment of it is, therefore, not yet possible. The splendid fullness 
of the useful material surprises the reader, and he feels delighted with per- 
ceiving that he has to do with two teachers, who give nothing but what 
they have proved by long practice. Every lesson seems to be given as if 
the talk had been held in the class. The arrangement of the exercises 
in style are appropriate, so far as we have been able to look them over. 

If we dared to make one criticism (snap our fingers at the authors), it 
would be this : It seems as if by the parallel contents of the exercises in 
observation and style, a certain monotony would be unavoidable in the 
later propositions. The pupil will rarely go farther in this field than to 
descriptions and stories. Pictures overtax his powers. The real mine 
from whence he will draw his compositions, outside of the nature that 
forms his surroundings, is human life, fable, parable, proverbs, universal 
history, and, above all, literature, with its incomparable riches. But we 
trust to the pedagogic skill of the authors, that they will avoid monotony, 
and that they will draw from their excellent material with proper judgment. 

The whole work is so important, by the wealth of its contents and the 
abundance of its methodical directions, that every teacher ought to be 
acquainted with it. We are still so poor in proper apparatus for object- 
teaching, that we are glad to mention a book that has already found a place 
for itself in the world's literature. 



AIDS IN OBJECT-TEACHING. 

14. Fifty Fables for Children. In Pictures. By Otto Spekter, Gotha: 
Fr. Perthes. 

Object Teaching and Instructions in Composition, and Pictures as an 
Aid to these. By SCHUMACHER, Seminary Teacher at Briihl, and Cup- 
per's Head Teacher at the Deaf-mute Institution at Briihl. Third 
unaltered edition. Bohn, 1874. 

An aid is here offered to teachers, which will remind them in many re- 
spects of what is already known. The size of the leaves corresponds to 
the earlier tablets of pictures by Wilke ; some of them have nearly the 
same contents. But they surpass Wilke's pictures in naturalness of repre- 
sentation ; some of them make almost an artistic impression. They are 
too small for class instruction, and in this respect are decidedly inferior to 
Striibing's pictures. 

The above-mentioned little treatise contains much that is good upon the 
treatment of picture tablets ; it is particularly to be observed that the 
authors' aim continuously at the education of the child, to cooperation in 
the instruction, and to his development in freedom and self-reliance ; they 
are both enemies to all wooden examinations and catechising. On the 
other side we must be careful to warn the teachers not to trust too much 
to their capability, of being able to begin something with the pictures by 
a sudden leap in reference to the material, without sufficient preparation. 
In the little labyrinth of these intuitions, and of the appropriate forms of 
speech, there is no course possible without a guiding thread, but only aim- 
less wandering. 

The following hints cover the chief contents of this treatise : 

1 . The aim of instruction does not require that the pictures should be 
handled as a series. 

2. Every picture contains a series of single scenes, which are united again 
in a determined point of view in another picture comprising the whole. 
"When a picture is used for the first time, let it lie near, so that the glance 
of the child, without dwelling long upon the details, may first sweep over the 
whole. To this natural want of the child let the teacher attend, and turn 
later to the description of the single groups, which are separated from each 
other in the picture. 

3. To keep to one picture until all the groups have been treated, is 
hardly necessary to be suggested. In general, it will be well, when the 
teacher has become wearied, to put the object-teaching, with reference to the 
material, and with intervals of other instruction, in the closest possible con- 
nection with the daily life and its occurrences, with the seasons and their 
appropriate phenomena and occupations. 

4. It is necessary that the teacher, before beginning upon his lesson, 
should determine for himself what picture and what group he will use, 
that he may thoroughly investigate the picture (and as far as possible from 
the children's standpoint), and bring to his own mind and make clear to 
his own consciousness the outer and inner connection of the details repre- 
sented, what is determined at the moment of going on by the picture, what 
was probably the action preceding, and what will follow it. 

5. There will be no objection to the teachers noticing his previous study 



450 AIDS IN OBJECT-TEACHING. 

of the picture in the closest connection with their conception of it, in con- 
versation with the children ; but he must be cautious not to make it a 
hindrance to the conversation. 

6. In the conversation, the teacher should at first keep himself in the 
background as much as possible. He suggests the subject, sets the talk in 
motion, and leaves it to the children ( ?) to carry it on, guides their atten- 
tion to new points of view, deepens or generalizes the comprehension of 
the thing. Errors of fact or logic he corrects or leaves to their correction ; 
errors of language he must treat forbearingly, and never go so far with 
this as to turn the children's attention from the thing to the form. 

7. With respect to the development of High German, it will speedily 
make itself manifest, if the teacher unites the pupils of the first and those 
of the second school year in the conversations upon the pictures. For the 
second class, a useful lesson in writing might be taken from it, after the 
conclusion of the conversation. 

8. It is to be recommended generally, that the teacher at the close of 
the conversation shall make a repetition of what has been said ia reference 
to the things lying about, and the little digressions that have taken place, 
and make it in such a manner that he now will say more himself, while the 
children listen silently, or follow, and merely take part by answering ques- 
tions that may arise. 

15. Instruction in Language in the Elementary School. A Guide /"or 
Teachers, by H. R. Ruegg, Professor in University. Berne, 1S72. 

This work is designed for a guide for instruction in language in elemen- 
tary classes. There are the three first-school classes, accordnig to the plan 
of the Berne schools. The author gives that direction to object-teaching 
which makes its difficulties lie rather in the cultivation of the senses than 
in language. Instruction in language is not with him dead, abstract exer- 
cise in thinking, but the greatest possible and most living conversations 
with it, and practice in it. In the lower class only the intuitive thinking 
and thinking intuition is considered, and everything must be kept at a 
distance which would lead to empty abstractions. So the elementary teach- 
ing of language is at the same time instruction in things, and all instruc- 
tion in things at that stage is instruction in language also. There is also 
a stage of the progress in which the two are intimately connected ; by 
which a root, as it were, is formed, out of which at a later stage, both 
subjects of instruction grow as independent stems. This intimate connec- 
tion and interpenetration of both sides is Object-teaching. 

The little work contains the first instruction in Reading and Writing ; 
Object-teaching, and E-Kercises in Grammar ; everything in the most inti- 
mate connection possible, although we could have wished it difierent, per- 
haps, in the arrangement of the Grammatical Exercises. The whole is an 
ingenious, wise work, and deserves a wide spread on account of the prin- 
ciples brought into use aad applied. 



MADAME HENEIETTA BEEYMANN SCHEADER. 

The principles of Froebel, as understood and applied in the Kindergarten 
at 16 Steinmetz Strasse, Berlin. 



INTRODUCTION. 

Madame Heniiietta Breymann Schrader, whose personal relations 
to Froebel as neice and pupil, gave her exceptionally good opportunities of 
knowing his peculiar views, as expounded in the family, and to young 
candraates and mothers at Keilhau and Dresden, and whose own experi- 
ence in Kindergarten work has been eminently successful, has under her 
personal superintendence an establishment in Berlin, which deserves 
special study. Of her peculiar fitness for the work, the Baroness Maren- 
holtz Billow speaks as follows in her "Reminiscences of Froebel," pub- 
lished in 1874 : 

Of the Kindergartners (Froebel's early scholars) who participated in 
the Teachers' Meeting in the Hall of the Liebenstein's Baths, on the 27th 
of September, 1851, I was specially interested in seeing Henrietta Brey- 
maim, one of Froebel's favorite pupils, who at that time had charge of a 
Kindergarten founded by the Sattler family in Schweinfurth. I had 
become acquainted with her at the time of my first knowledge of Froebel, 
and was delighted by her amiability, her talents, aud her zeal for the 
cause. More and more intimate as time went on, we often worked together, 
especially in Brussels, where I invited her during my residence there to 
undertake the instruction in Fi'oebel's method for a six months' course, 
arranged by the suggestion of a number of teachers, and at the same time 
to take part in a Kindergarten instituted there. 

Fraulein Breymann (now Frau Schnider in Berlin, wife of the railroad 
director) is one of those advocates of Froebel's education who hold fast 
to the method, and strive to overcome that which generally in its practice 
is merely mechanical ; and to keep up its true spirit. 

The institution founded by her and her sister.^ in Watzum, near Wolfen- 
buttel, was the first known to me which took up Froebel's method for 
part of its programme, as a necessary branch of instruction for general 
female culture, and carried it through successfully. Frau Schrader agreed 
with me in consideriug the training of the female sex for its educational 
calling in Froebel's method as the first condition of making it useful in 
the general reform of education. In this sense she works with her hus- 
band, who is a true follower and clear-sighted advocate of the cause, in 
our Universal Educational Union, which is striving specially to secure the 
chief end of the reform by tlie complete application of the method. She 
is also one of the decided opponents of the ever wider-spreading super- 
ficiality in the cultivation of Kindergartners, which is now thought to be 
a purely mechanical calling, with the time of learning the art reduced to 
a few months, while a year is scarcely long enough for the majority of 
the somewhat uncultivated young girls who study it. 

With these opportunities of knowing her uncle's views, and of seeing 
his own work with children, mothers, and kindergartners, tested also by 
her own successful experience, we naturally turn to the establishment 
which she has organized and conducts in Berlin, for as near an approach 
to Froebel's own views and method, as we can now have. The interesting 



452 MADAME HENRIETTA BKEYMANN SCHRADER. 

account given by Mrs. Aldrich of her visit to this establishment, and the 
valuable contribution made by Miss Lyschinska, Superintendent of Method 
in Infant Schools under the School Board for London, in her volume on 
"the Educational Value and Chief Applications of the Kindergarten 
Principle," the outcome of the author's association virith Madame Schrader, 
for years as pupil and friend, induced us to address a note for further 
information, to which we received the following reply : 

LETTER TO EDITOR OF AMERICAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION. 

Dear Sir: — In response to your inquiry I take great pleasure in send- 
ing you a few lines about our establishment. No. 16 Steinmetz Strasse, 
and explaining to you the principles upon which I have founded aiff^ now 
direct it. This is no easy task. First of all, my health is not strong; then, 
I am so much taken up by practical life that it is but seldom I can find the 
time and quiet necessary for writing; and last, it is, I think, very difficult 
to put the practice of child culture clearly and concisely into written 
words. These are but cold interpreters of the warm, living experiences of 
daily practice ; they cannot lay hold of what are often the most important 
points in the life of children. This essence of things, in its volatility, 
variety, and outward irregularity of form, cannot be analyzed and clearly 
expressed. It is only by living with children that we can be made to 
understand it, and you would learn more by an hour's visit to our Kinder- 
garten than by long written explanations, which, in regard to practice, 
are what a dried and preserved flower is to a fresh and blooming one. 

Kindergartens are generally conducted on too rigid principles of math- 
ematical regularity. People seem to believe that when there is a law, 
there must also be inflexible regularity, not understanding that law and 
method can be found in irregularity of appearance, and also that the 
children's life cannot bear this regularity, in the measure now given, as 
it makes too great a pressure upon their intellectual powers, changing 
thus the purpose of the Kindergartens, and making of them schools for 
little children. 

Froebel's intention, on the contrary, was just to work against such a 
precocious and one-sided intellectual development. He desired to give a 
good moral direction to the natural inclinations of children, to afford 
them opportunities of developing their feelings in union with intellectual 
culture and development, but so that the latter should not become the 
starting point in early education. 

He thought that the daily cares and business of the mother and the 
conditions of the child's own life were the best materials for education, 
by putting the child in a loving and active relation to the surrounding 
world, fastening him to it, producing love in him by giving him oppor- 
tunity of loving, developing the principle of action through the exertion 
itself, thus making the child gather a treasury of intuitions and experi- 
ences which are the only sensible basis for the later development of thought. 

In this way the whole of the mother's activity, of which the child is a 
partaker, and so far as it is kept in unison with the care and love due to 
others, becomes the central point out of which the child is guided to the 
culture and knowledge of nature and of the outer world, and adding to 



I 



MAPAME HENRIETTA BREYMANN SCHRADER. 453 

it the occupations provided by Froebel, he is also initiated into the begin- 
nings of industry and art. 

Froebel's intention, wiien he provided mothers -with work and occupa- 
tions for their little children, was not onlj^ to prove the necessity of such 
\ occupations in the family, but also to transplant through his Kindergarten, 
into public education, a corner of family life, putting thus in practice 
Pestalozzi's demands, expressed as follows: 

"Whensoever the care and forethought of parents fail to the child, be 
it in regard to his material, intellectual, or moral welfare, this want must 
be attended to in order that he may attain to his dignity as a human being. 
When this is not done, you may open schools to him, provide him with 
as much food and clothing as you like; still the poor forlorn creature is 
not educated, for the basis for his development as a human being will be 
altogether wanting. 

"It must be seen that such cases often present themselves, and the neces- 
sary provisions must be made to supply through art the deficiency of nature. 
When I speak of the care and forethought of parents, of course I mean 
those parents whose superiority gives them a true insight into the neces- 
sarj^ condition of the children's life, those who know how to make cir- 
cumstances submit to the child and act as stimulants to his natural wants 
of love and activity, who derive from all the conditions of the outer 
world materials for the child's development, who never let any opportunity 
escape which may be of use and profit to him." 
These words were written by Pestalozzi in 1809. He wrote also : 
"Domestic life in itself, the relation between mother and child in their 
material sense, are neither moral nor immoral, but they offer the materials 
for the culture of morals. 

"Man is free either to lay hold of these moral means or to disregard 
them, but when man does not soar above his animal capabilities, there are, 
in my opinion, neither father nor mother, nor son nor daughter. They 
enjoy the conditions of domestic life in a mere animal way, not in accord- 
ance with the human dignity, and consequently the human being, the 
man, cannot in such conditions develop himself. Neither the work of 
hands, nor the profession, nor the situation, can in themselves cultivate 
the moral feeling; when these are morally used, then, and then only, they 
cultivate morals. 

"There is in man an inner force; a dignity quite independent of the 
above circumstances, as well as of all the physical conditions of domestic 
life, and it is this dignity that gives the moral stamp to the family life. 
Such as is the man, such is his home." 

The real value of Froebel's Kindergarten lies just in this transferrence of 
the family atmosphere into the public education, in the methodical 
training of feeling and inclinations, affording to the child material and 
opportunity to develop his productive force, not only for his own benefit, 
but for the good of others ; while the school occupies itself principally 
with the methodical development of thought. 

It is, however, necessary that the Kindergarten should receive a fuller 
development and a continuation in a garden for the young, and in an art 
and work establishment where the children may continue their garden 
occupations, as well as the elements of art and industry; such an estab- 
lishment as Froebel had in view when he founded Blankenburg ; for it is 
obvious that many families want a help towards the development of will 
and feeling, not only in the first years of childhood, but during all the 
time given to education. 



454 MADAME HENRIETTA BREYMANN SCHRADilR. 

Considering Kindergartens under this point of view, we are necessarily 
led to infer that we must take quite a different direction in the training 
of Kindergartens than the one now in favor. They must be taught domes- 
tic duties and acquirements, their minds being made aware of the fact 
that in those occupations are found the best materials for the education 
of children. It is important to develop in them real motherly ways, such 
as the Germans express by the word " Mutterlichkeit " ; ways which no- 
abstract reasonings of the mind can give, but which are the product of a 
deep insight into the child's nature, wants, and necessities. 

This insight, which Froebel possessed to a very high degree, is wanting 
in a great many of his followers, I believe for the two following reasons: 
first, the too intellectual bias given to education, then the too narrow 
circle in which Froebel's followers move themselves. They go on study- 
ing Froebel in order to understand Froebel without taking into account 
that Froebel's ideas are not the miraculous product of a single individual 
mind, but the result of the accumulated work and experience of centuries. 
Froebel himself is but a link in a long chain of progression, and to com- 
prehend him fully it is necessary to walk in his steps, to study what may 
be called the groundwork of his ideas, nature as well as pedagogues and 
poets; we must enter deeply into the ideas of such men as Comenius, 
Rousseau, and above all, of Pestalozzi; we must read the great poets who 
have given us an insight of human nature, study the outer works of crea- 
tion to understand the relation in which we stand towards it, — and then 
return to Froebel himself, but freed from prejudice and no longer depend- 
ent upon his ways and peculiarities, which are only a part of his too 
marked and strong individuality. 

By all this you will easily understand that the most difficult part of my 
task lies in the training of young Kindergartners, a task rendered doubly 
difficult by the fact that in Germany the situation of Kindergartner is 
undervalued and but ill requited. 

Advanced as Germany is in all matters relating to instruction, remark- 
,able as are many of our methods for the acquisition of knowledge and 
science, it has not yet fully recognized the importance of elementary edu- 
cation. The interest for instruction, the thirst for knowledge, are so 
great that they seem to draw a bamer across the still and quiet way which 
ought to lead us to insight into the child's nature and necessities. 

But I am obliged, for to-day, to cut short and leave the end of what I have 
still to say about the upper classes of my establishment for another time. 

Pray remember me kindly to Mrs. Aldrich, in which Madam Hony joins, 
as well as in the expressions of regard with which I remain. 

Yours truly, HENRIETTA B. SCHRADER. 

Beklin, October 15, 1880. 

Joined to this letter you will find the translation of a brief French 
essay, written by Mad. Hony, under my direction. It contains the prin- 
cipal ideas upon which my Kindergarten is conducted, and though not 
yet complete, it will, I think, give you an idea of the way in which I 
have tried to put into practice the Froebelian systena. 



IMADAME HENRIETTA BREYMANN SCHRADER. 455 

Fi'oebelian Institution at 16 Steinmetz Strasse. 

ORGANIZATION. 

I. Kindergarten.— IN three divisions. 

(1) Third Division, subdivided in two pa>ls on account of number, age 
from 2i to 4. 

(2) Second Division, age from 4 to 5. 

(3) First Division, age from 5 to 6. 

II. Intermediate Class, age from 6 to 6}. Preparation for the element- 
ary class, to which a course for stitching and manual work is joined. 

ill. Elementary Class, age from 6i to 7^. The course of manual 
work is continued. 

IV. A class for young girls having left the Kindergarten to enter into 
the public primary schools, who come several times a week to be taught 
stitching and housework. 

V. A course for the training of young Kindergartners of the first and 
second degree. With this establishment is intimately associated the 
Union for Household Hygiene ( Verein far Hau sliche Oesundheit Pflege), 
which attends to the health department, as well in the establishment itself 
as in the families. 

PLAN OP ROOM8. 

1. Ground floor, a few steps above the level of the ground: 

(1.) A kitchen on the left, used for the children's work and as a ward- 
robe; next to this a little room for the keeping of utensils, garden tools, 
etc. 

(2.) Large room in front of the kitchen, with two windows, and with 
free access, for the intermediate class. 

(3.) Little work-room next to this, for the Kindergartners who help ia 
the Kindergarten. _ \ 

(4.) Free independent room, on the same side, for the first division. 

(5.) Room at the end of the passage, with a large window looking on a 
large and well-aired court, for the second division. 

(6.) Little room next to this, overlooking the same court, and used for 
one subdivision of the third division. > 

(7.) Large play-room, entered through this little room, with three win- 
dows looking also on the court, and having a free and independent access 
by this same court-yard. 

(8.) Little room next to the play- room, serving for another subdivision 
of the third division. 

On the same floor, on the court-yard side, two rooms and one kitchen, 
used by the Union for household hygiene. 

2. First Floor. On the right lives a family entrusted with the clean- 
ing, making fires, etc., in the establishment. 

(9.) A room in this apartment is used for the elementary class in the 
morning, and for the class of manual work in the afternoon. 

On the left lives a lady who has the charge of the depot for the 
"Union per Household Hygiene," and who gives the stitching lessons. 

3. Court-yard and little garden. 



456 MADAME HENRIETTA BREYMANN SCHRADER. 

SALARIED OFFICIALS. 

Principal and general overseer of the establishment, Fraulein A. 

SCHEFEL ; 

Principal of the Kindergarten, FrSulein Clara Hirsekorn; 

Assistants in the Kindergarten, Fraulein Rosa Hirsekorn and other 
young Kindergartners who are learning the practice ; 

Teachers: In the intermediate class, Fraulein Marie Fuchs; in the 
elementary class, Fraulein von Burse; stitching and manual work, 
Fraulein Standinger; depot and class to learn mending of clothes, etc., 
Fraulein Eisner. 

A visit to MADAME SCHRADER'S ESTABLISHMENT. 

On my arrival the children are all gathered in room No. 2. They are 
singing a morning hyrnn. After a few kind affectionate words from the 
principal, they separate, and the work of the day begins. 

Third, or Youngest Division. 

Follow a part of these divisions to the play-room, where the children 
set about enjoying themselves as they please. Some join in a round 
game, others play quite alone. They have at their disposal very plain 
and simple toys, such as dolls, little chairs, tables, tea services, etc. A 
teacher overlooks them without taking an active part in their game, unless 
they desire it particularly. 

From two to four years of age, play is the principal occupation of the 
child ; it is for him the power of giving a form to his ideas by the help of 
surrounding objects, and at the same time the means of giving vent to 
the full play of his activity. Pestalozzi says: "that no force can be 
developed unless by the play of its own power of action." We must then 
conclude that if we wish to see in the child the development of his most 
essential faculties, he is to be allowed the full play of his energies and 
faculties, and no restraint whatever to be put on the first working of his 
individuality in his relation with the outer world. At this pertod of his 
development the result of his efforts is less interesting to the child than 
the activity itself; for this reason the influence of elders must here be 
principally indirect. 

As the child draws the materials for his ideas out of the things about 
him, we must try to surround him with such an atmosphere as may create 
in him good, sound, healthy ideas; to attain this end, we must give him 
room and space enough to permit him to enjoy himself fully and freely, 
toys and things appropriate to his physical strength, which he may easily 
handle and transform without breaking or destroying them. But above 
all, he must be surrounded with sympathy and love ; he must feel that we 
are always ready to enter into his ideas, to be the partakers of his joy, 
taking at the same time due care that he should not feel any restraint nor 
any special direction forced upon him. This full liberty, of such an abso- 
lute necessity to the child, is also the best means offered to the educator 
of becoming acquainted with his true nature, as it shows itself through 
his tastes and inclinations freely manifested. 

The home is generally the best place for the education of the child, but 



MADAME HENRIETTA BREYMANN SCHRADER. 457 

when the necessary conditions for his development are not to be found in 
the family, the Kindergartner must fill this void and create for the child 
what is waiiting to him. 

I leave this room and enter one where the other children of the third 
division are assembled. They are gathered round the teacher; she is 
showing to them a picture out of Froebel's book Mutter und Koselieder, 
the basket of flowers. She gives no explanations, her object not being to 
teach, but merely to create joyful impressions. The children look and 
make remarks, the teacher answers so as to encourage them, to draw them 
out, and awaken their attention more and more. The picture represents 
a garden, where a mother and a little girl are plucking flowers to take up 
to the father. They examine the picture, express their feelings about it, 
and when they have done it long enough, some pretty flowers are shown 
to them. The teacher asks whetlier they would not lilie to take some 
home with them? But for this, they must have baskets; baskets can be 
made out of the children's own fingers. She makes them all join their 
hands in the form of a basket, making them, at the same time, sing 
"Little child, let us make baskets" {Mutter und Koselieder). When the 
song is finished they receive little paper baskets, to carry home to their 
parents. 

The talk is at an end; the children seat themselves round the table; 
little wooden sticks are distributed among them, out of which they make 
different things — vases, baskets, etc. 

Froebel's book. Mutter und Koselieder, is the starting point for all the 
occupations of this division. These occupations are already a kind of 
work, for the child is no longer left to the full play of his imagination, 
but he is limited by a given space and materials, and he must bring him- 
self to execute an idea which has not spontaneously come into his mind, 
but has been suggested by others. Work, as well as play, has activity 
for its basis; but if, with the latter, activity in itself is the principal end, 
with work, on the contrarj^ the result has its importance; therefore the 
child cannot be left entirely free, he must be guided so as to employ his 
forces in a useful way. Activity in itself is so charming for the child 
that he does not, at first, make a great difference between play and work; 
it is only when the latter presents too great difllculties and puts too great 
a restraint upon his liberty that it becomes irksome and painful to him. 

By proportioning the work to the child's powers and strength, by awak- 
ening in him a desire of being useful, by taking care not to fatigue him, 
one may succeed in making him feel as much pleasure in work as in play. 
There are in the child, as in the man, two personalities: the individual, 
and the social being. Man lives not isolated, but moves in a society to 
wliich he owes his own share of profit and usefulness. Education must 
take this into account, and try to develop simultaneously in the child, the 
individual and the social being by giving a full play to the spontane- 
ous action of the child's powers, but at the same time giving such a 
direction to their powers that they may be productive of general good. 
Play and work are both necessary, and it is to their united and combined 
action that the child owes sound and normal development.. 



458 MADAME HENRIETTA BREYMANN SCHRADER. 

Second Division. 

The children follow their teacher to the kitchen, where they are en- 
trusted with flower-pots, earth, plants, little rounds of paper, each of 
them carrying something. 

They return to the class-rcom, and gather round the table, where they 
place the things they have Lrought with them. A spoon in the hand; 
they, one after the other, half fill the flower-pots with earth; they then 
put the plants in and cover them with earth. They then water the plants 
and set them before the window, when the weather is too cold to set 
them out in the open air. And thus the children are, from the beginning, 
placed directly in contact with nature ; they are brought to understand 
the relation in which man and nature stand to each other, and the neces- 
sity of reciprocal action. In order that the flower may please our eyes 
and rejoice us with its perfume, we must, after having planted, water it; 
we must take every care of it, to give and to receive; everything goes on 
in this world by the law of reciprocation. 

Another day this same plant, the violet, furnishes the material for a new 
work. It is stitched on a piece of paper, marked, and afterwards drawn; 
it appears in different aspects, but it is always the violet that is presented 
to the child, in order that all the experiments he is making may leave deep 
and lasting impressions upon his mind. Almost all the occupations of 
this division relate to work, and the reality is the starting point, thus, 
always preceding by gradual steps; passing from the image to the reality. 
First, the picture, then the flower, and last the plant; the semblance of 
work, then the work itself. 

First Division. 

The same occupations are continued. The teacher tells a little story, in 
which the violet plays the first part; the children listen with pleased atten- 
tion, and ask that it should again be told to them. The tale finished, they 
are shown a pretty picture by Ludwig Rickbe, representing a family, 
enjoying the beauty of the spring. The mother has the child in her 
arms; she points out to him, over the wall, the green fields, the houses; 
she seems to say: "See, my child, the world which is offering itself to 
you." Then slates are distributed among them; they are allowed to draw 
whatever they please, but they endeavor, generally, to represent an episode 
of the story they have just heard. 

The children learn, also, by heart, a little poem on the violet, and this 
poem, expressing only feelings and ideas created by the thing itself, no 
explanations are required. The child follows unconsciously the same 
path taken by the poet, he goes through the same impressions that have 
created his poem, which becomes for him as a revelation, the half -veiled 
expression of feelings to which he is himself as yet unable to give a form. 
Berlin, Oct. 15, 1880. 

[In the absence of further direct information, we must refer our readers 
to Mrs. Aldrich's account of her visit to this institution, and to the extract* 
from Miss Lyschinska's little volume on the Kindergarten Principle, for 
glimpses of the work done in other divisions of Madame Schrader's estab- 
lishment. — Ed.] 



VISITS TO KINDEEGARTENS-BEKLIN. 459 



A GERMAN KINDERGARTEN.* 

This institution consisted of two divisions of tlie Kindergarten 
proper, and of the Transition Class, altogether providing for children 
from three to six years of age. What struck me as especially worthy 
of notice was the unity of plan upon which the education during these 
three years was conducted. Each class represented a year of age. At 
three a child entered the lowest division. Here the work of the Kin- 
dergarten teacher was eminently that of a mother; yet with all the 
freedom of the nursery there was a thread of reason running through 
the day's proceedings. These were not desultory, but sustained by 
some central thought, which was generally taken from a conversational 
lesson over the picture-book, or else from the present circumstance, such 
as of some live pet which had to be cared for and fed. 

The first quarter of an hour was generally devoted to a chat; but as 
the children were many, and the family type was upheld, the teacher 
took the children, in relays of six or seven at a time, to look at one or 
two plates in Frobel's "Mother's Book"; the rest were meanwhile 
building or stick-laying, or playing in the garden under the direction of 
an assistant. 

For example, a small number of children are seated round the knee 
of their motherly friend, who encourages them to talk freely on the 
experiences of the morning. Who brought Mary to the Kindergarten 
this morning ? Who gave Annie that nice white pinafore ? The recol- 
lection of the loved ones at home is stirred up, and every child con- 
tributes some little fact of its family history ; each would like to tell 
that it lias a dear mother, a father, a sister, or brother at home. This 
idea is seized and worked out by the motherly teacher. She inquires, 
relates, and finally promises to show them a picture of a family sitting 
together in the parlor. The picture of a home interior is shown. 
The heightened pleasure of the children may be read in their eager 
faces as they peer into the book and recognize the different members of 
the family in turn. After which the designs all round the central pic- 
ture are looked at, and the children notice how there are father and 
mother hares in the long grass, accompanied by their" little ones ; how 
there is a pigeon family, a deer family, etc. The children return again 
to the central picture of the human family group, and finally, the dis- 
position having been created, the finger game is introduced: "Let us 
look at our fingers ; are they not like a little family too ? See how hap- 
pily they live together ; they always help one another. Shall we learn a 
little song about the family of fingers to-day ? " " Yes," the children 
•wish to do so ; and, imitating the action, they repeat the following 
words : — 

" This is our mother, dear and good, 
This is our father of merry mood, 
*16 Steinmetz-strasse. Berlin. This Kindergarten, when visited by Mrs. Aldrich, 
had expanded so as to embrace boys and girls somewhat older than six. 



450 A GERMAN KINDERGARTEN— BERLIN. 

This our big brotlier so strong and tall, 
Tbis our dear sister beloved of all, 
^is is the baby still tender and small ; 
And tbis the whole family we call. 
See, when together, how happy they be ! 
Loving and working, they ever agree." 

As the building lesson comes round, the same idea of the family is 
carried out, and the children build a " parlor " or a " house " in which 
the hapi^y family is to dwell. Then the " oven " is built, and sticks are 
required to light it, in order that the members of the household may 
enjoy the family meal. On another occasion the visit of a dog to the 
Kindergarten is the center of interest for many days, and every occu- 
pation is in turn brought into connection with it. A trough is built 
for the dog to drink out of, a kennel is laid in the stick-laying lesson, 
and so on. In every instance there is some center of living interest around 
which the little life of these children is made to revolve, and it is drawn 
from the occurrences of every day. Thus the aim in this division is to 
awaken interest in the nearest surroundings, and at the same time to 
enlist the active powers of children in the same direction as their im- 
pressions. 

Wheat Grown in their own Garden, 

Let us trace how this method of introducing the children to life 
around them was continued with those from four to six years of age. 
These were occupied once or twice a week in gardening a plot of ground 
belonging to them. Here many of the plants which were to furnish 
subject-matter for their observation were sown, and carefully tended 
throughout the spring and summer. They also became practically ac- 
quainted with a few industrial processes, such as they could take part 
in. For instance, when " wheat " was being especially considered, the 
children enjoyed the fun of actually reaping the wheat they had helped 
to sow in spring, in the plot of ground common to all. They bound it 
in sheaves, and carried it in triumph into their school-room, where each 
child received a stalk or two with the full ear ; and whilst sitting qui- 
etly round the table they held the stalks upright and close together, 
until the children could very nearly picture to themselves a corn-field 
which had taken root in-doors. The Kindergiirtnerin* then led them 
by a series of self-made experiences to an appreciation of such facts as — 

1. The height of the stalk. (This was very simply and well brought 
out by a story being told of how the Kindergiirtnerin had played at 
hide-and-seek with a little boy in a corn-field during the summer hol- 
idays.) 

2. The hoUowness of the stalk. (The children learned this by blow- 
ing soap bubbles through the straw.) 

3. The presence of knots in the stalk. (This experience was like- 
wise gained while blowing soap bubbles ; some children having been 



*I keep the original word in the text. " Infant teacher " is but a cold translation 
of what is meant. 



A GERMAN KINDERGARTEN— BERLIN. 461 

allowed to break the straws in the spaces between the knots, they found 
they could not use them.) 

4. The ear of corn hangs its head. Why ? (This led to an examin- 
ation of an empty and a full ear.) 

5. The ear is a great house in which there are many rooms. 

6. In each room there lives a single little grain. 

7. Of what use is the grain ? (They had sown it in the spring, they 
were now about to learn its use experimentally.) 

Another day the corn was threshed in the garden, the children using 
a small flail in turn. The grain was gathered and separated from the 
chaff by some others. Pai't of the grain was reserved for seed, and a 
small quantity was ground by the children between stones. 

Another day, flour was taken and pancakes were baked. The chil- 
dren, under the direction of an older person, had each something to do 
in the process, the older ones learning to beat the eggs and to stir the 
flour, whilst the younger ones ran on little errands. At last, the great 
moment having arrived, the company sat down to enjoy the feast. 
Meanwhile, the leading idea was carried through the various occupar 
tions somewhat in the following manner : — 

The elder children were " pricking " on paper the ear of corn or the 
mill which ground the corn ; the younger children only outlined the 
millstones. Again, a scythe was sewn in colored silk or wool. When 
stick and ring laying was the order of the day, then the cart which 
carried the sacks of corn was represented, etc. The appropriate games 
were the " Farmer," the " Miller," the " Mill," etc. 

Finally a story, or simple piece of poetry, summing up the children's 
experiences, was spoken or sung to the Kindergiirtnerin's accompani- 
ment on the piano. A picture representing the subject from an artistic 
point of view (the " Sower," by L. Richter) was shown, and enjoyed as a 
resume of the children's experiences during the past week or two. 
There was nothing in either the story or the poem which was foreign 
to their experience. 

LESSON ON THE COMMON IVY. 

The connection the object has with the lives of children and of hu- 
man beings ; these impressions are to be conveyed to the children by 
the course of events. 

When the trees stand stripped of their green dress, when the earth 
is wrapped in a white mantle of snow, when no flower is to be seen in 
the garden, then it is that the kind ivy delights us with the freshness 
of its green. It cannot bear to leave the old wall so ugly and gray ; it 
throws its long arms round the crumbling stones, and clothes them in 
a garment of living green. Even in-doors we like to see our ivy plant; 
it does not ask for a place where it can be seen in the light of the sun ; 
it is pleased with a shady corner, where it will cling to our pictures and 
encircle dear familiar faces with a framework of green leaves ; all it 
asks for is air, moderate daylight, and cleanliness. It gives its very 



462 -A- GERMAN KINDERGARTEN— BERLIN. 

best to the poorest amongst us ; it will flourish in and adorn a garret 
"just as readily as a window in Mayfair. Would that the children of 
the poor learned through us to open their eyes to see the inexhaustible 
beauties which Nature spreads out before all her children, that they 
might learn to lay hold on such pleasures as are simple yet enduring. 

The Course pursued with Children. 

I. A walk to the Botanical Gardens, which happened to be in the 
neighborhood. The children are told to look for and to store any 
evergreens they find during their walk. With the permission of the 
gardener some box, fir twigs, ivy, moss, etc., are gathered, and are put 
into little baskets the children take for the purpose. 

II. The children decorate their respective class-rooms. Plates are 
filled with water and the moss, etc., is placed ou them. The pictures, 
walls, etc., are decorated. (This is once done in the upper and twice in 
the lower division.) 

III. A neglected pot of ivy was observed and bought. The children 
observe its state and remove the cobwebs, sponge the leaves, renew the 
earth. A place is chosen for it in the room. (Conditions of health for 
the plant are thus discussed. Its appearance.) 

IV. A story was told. Subjects : — 1. The apple-tree that had an ivy 
dress on in winter. 2. The neglected pot of ivy at the gardener's. 
This leads up to the piece of poetry spoken by the Kindergiirtnerin, 
and gradually remembered and recited by the children in both divi- 
sions : — 

When the wind sounds dreary, Long ago the summer 

When the dead leaves fall ; Left us all alone ; 

Then the ivy 's never weary Nothing fresh to look at 

Creeping up the wall. Save the cold gray stone. 

Shaking otf the snow-flakes, Living leaves of ivy 

Laughing as they fall ; Clinging to the wall, 

" You may bury dead leaves ! " Gladden with their green dress, 

Say those upon the wall. People big and small. 

V. Occupations in connection with the above : — 
Building : a wall with ivy and moss. 
Sand-work : a garden, evergreens planted. 
Pajyer-fokVmg : a basket to hold evergreens and moss. 
Pricking: the ivy leaf. 

Sewing : ditto (natural coloring). 
Drawing : model of the ivy leaf. 
Modeling : the ivy leaf. 

In these diversified occupations the constructive activity of the class, 
and of every member of a class, finds scope. 



A GERMAN KINDERGARTEN— BERLIN. 463 

PREPARATION OP LESSONS. 

Each object, before being treated with children, was studied by the 
Kindergiirtnerin and her assistants, and for this purpose a meeting was 
arranged once a week for the consideration and preparation of the 
objects and their accessories. The following scheme was followed in 
gathering information upon a plant : — 

A. External Structure. 

1. Size. 2. Covering. 3. Chief parts. 4. Subdivisions of parts and 
their relative position. 

B. Internal Structure and Development. 

1. Structure of the seed. 2. Its composition. 3. Station. 4. Time 
of germination. 5. Process of germination (cells, structure and con- 
tents ; cellular tissue ; vascular tissue ; circulation of juices ; nutrition ; 
root absorption ; functions of leaves ; extraordinary vessels and fluids). 
6. Duration of growth, from the germ to the complete plant. 7. Prop- 
agation. 8. Age of plant. 

C. Geographical Distrihution, 

D. Historical. 

E. Cultivation. 

1. General. 2. Diseases to which the plant is subject. 
F. Its Place in Domestic Economy. 
G. Classification. 
(Natural orders.) 
In case of an animal the information was gathered under the follow- 
ing heads : — 

A. Description. 
1. Size. 2. Covering. 3. Color. 4. Description of parts : head ; 
body; l^mbs. 

B. Apparatus of Animal Life. 

1. Movement (anatomy, general view ; muscular system, general). 
2. Sensation (nervous system, general ; organs of sense; expression). 

C. Apparatus of Organic Life. 

1. Digestive system (habitat ; food). 2. Circulation. 3. Respi- 
ration. 

D. Reproduction. 

1. Care of the young. 2. Support of the young. 3. Metamorpho- 
sis (insects). 

E. Miscellaneous. 

1. Geographical distribution. 2. Age attained. 8. Relations in 
which the animal stands to individuals of the same species ; individuals 
of other species, or to other orders or classes; to plants; to man. 4. 
Means of defense against attack. 

F. Historical. 

G, Domestication, or Acclimatization. 
H. Classification. 
1. Individual. 2. Species. 3. Family. 4. Order. 5. Class. 6. 
Sub-kingdom. 



464 A GERMAN KINDERGARTEN— BEBLIST. 

In order to obtain a complete general knowledge of the object to be 
treated, each teacher gathered information on one or two points more 
especiallj', after which the teachers met together for the interchange of 
such information. Prof. Moseley [English Inspector of Schools] points 
out the danger of incomplete knowledge on the part of the teacher. 

" Had the teacher known more of the subject-matter of his lesson, it 
has been my constant observation that he would have been able to 
select from it things better adapted to the instruction of children and 
to place them in a simpler point of view. That he may be able to pre- 
sent his subject to the minds of the children in its most elementary 
forms, he must himself have gone to the root of it ; that he may ex- 
haust it of all that it is capable of yielding for the child's instruction, 
he must have compassed the whole of it. The cardinal defect of the 
oral lesson in elementary schools is an inadequate knowledge on the 
part of the teacher of that which he is teaching. If his knowledge of 
it had covered a larger surface, he would have selected matter better 
adapted to the instruction of the children. If he had comprehended 
it more fully, he would have made it plainer to them. If he had been 
more familiar with it, he would have spoken more to the point. I will 
endeavor to illustrate this by an example. A teacher proposing to give 
an oral lesson on coal, for instance, holds a piece of it up before his 
class, and, having secured their attention, he probably asks them to 
which kingdom it belongs — animal, vegetable, or mineral — a question 
in no case of much importance, and to be answered, in the case of coal, 
doubtfully. Having, however, extracted that answer which he intended 
to get from the children, he induces them, by many ingenious devices, 
much circumlocution, and an extravagant expenditure of the time of 
the school, to say that it is a solid, that it is heavy, that it is opaque, 
that it is black, that it is friable, and that it is combustible. In such a 
lesson the teacher affords evidence of no other knowledge of the par- 
ticular thing which is the subject of it than the children might be sup- 
posed to possess before the lesson began. He gives it easily because the 
form is the same for every lesson ; the blanks having only to be differently 
filled up every time it is repeated. All that it is adapted for is to teach 
them the meanings of some unusual words, words useless to them be- 
cause they apply to abstract ideas, and which, as the type of all such les- 
sons is the same, he has probably often taught them before. He has 
shown some knowledge of words, but none of things. Of the particular 
thing called coal, as distinguished from any other thing, he knows noth- 
ing more than the child, but only of certain properties common to it 
and almost everything else, and of certain words, useless to poor chil- 
dren, which describe these qualities This tendency, from igno- 
rance of things, to teach words only, runs in a notable manner through 
almost all the lessons on physical science which I have listened to." 

We shall be glad to enrich our pages with further extracts from this 
excellent treatise. 



NOTES OF VISITS TO KINDERGARTENS. 



INTRODUCTION. 

The following paper is by Mrs. A. Aldrich, the first Directress of the 
kindergarten in Florence, Mass., which was founded by Mr. Hill, who 
erected a beautifid building for the purpose in lovely grounds, and 
invited all the citizens of the place, rich and poor, to send their chil- 
dren, promising to pay all expenses which their voluntary contributions 
could not meet. The Institute now [1880] consists of four classes, 
with suitable teachers, aU under the able and genial direction of Miss 
Carrie T. Haven. The Florence kindergarten has acquired a peculiar 
reputation from the fact that its founder made it a point that there 
should be no direct religious teaching, which grew out of his disgust at 
the narrow ecclesiasticism which cannot see that little children should 
not be indoctrinated in dogmas. The extreme to which he carries his 
sentiments upon this point would be disastrous in its effects if he could 
find no one who knew how to excite the religious sentiment in children 
without formulas that involve dogmatism. Under the charge of Mrs. 
Aldrich there was no lack of religious culture of a vital nature, and 
when these children are old enough to hear the common religious ex- 
pressions, they will have a deep meaning to them. Her mantle has 
fallen upon one who is also doing a good work. 

Mrs. Aldrich has passed a year in Germany and sends an interesting 
account of her observations. She enjoyed much intercourse with the 
noble Baroness Marenholtz, who has done so much for the diffusion of 
kindergartens in Europe. — Editor. 

MRS. SCHRADER's KINDERGARTEN IN BERLIN. 

When visiting the Berlin kindergartens I found one which was doing 
an independent work, embodying the vital points of the kindergarten 
system in a little different way from the ordinary one, but with such 
remarkable results that I felt it deserved close study. It will be inter- 
esting to know that the directress of it is a relative of Friedrich Frdbel, 
known in the history of the institution at Keilhau as Henrietta Brey- 
mann. In her own account of how she came to take up the work, she 
says : 

" Friedrich Frobel's mother," Mrs. Schrader writes, " was my grand- 
father's sister. My grandfather, on the mother's side, was Consistorial 
Rath and Superintendent at Nette, near Hildesheim. His name was 
Hoffman. My mother married the clergyman of the place, Breymann. 
Frobel often visited my grandfather, and after his death he used to come 

30 



466 VISITS TO KINDERGARTENS -BEKLIN. 

to see us from time to time. He saw me first when I was quite a child, but 
I made his acquaintance at Keilhau, at the age of seventeen or eighteen, 
having been invited to spend the summer there. I had not then the 
least intention of becoming his pupil ; it was only a family visit to my 
relatives. But his conversations made such a deep impression upon me, 
that I asked permission of my parents to study under him. I was 
allowed to attend a com-se of lectures given by him at Dresden, and 
afterwards to follow hira to Liebenstein, where he founded an educa- 
tional establishment to prepare young women for his mission. I was 
deeply impressed by all he said and by his general principles, but from 
the first the way in which the kindergarten idea was put in practice 
did not satisfy my ideal. I could not say why, but I felt quite unwill- 
ing to take the direction of one, and returned home. The views of 
Frbbel were a revelation to me — a light shining in darkness. They ap- 
peared to me far in advance of the manners and doings of the kiuder- 
gartners who were at work. I required many years and much experience 
of life and home to understand why I did not like the kindergartens." 
In conversation, Mrs. Schrader told me that from childhood her chief 
amusement when left to play freely was school keeping. Her father, the 
clergyman Breymann, who thought it was a far nobler life to have some 
definite object in it, and was quite above the common German prejudice, 
that if a woman did anything for money she immediately degraded her- 
self, proposed to her and to an older sister and brother to open a school 
in their native place. They found suitable accommodations and opened 
a school, which continued for many years, was enlarged, and became a 
prominent institution. They were happy in it for many years, working 
out their own ideas of education, when Henrietta married to a govern- 
ment official who had profound sympathy for everything that interested 
his wife, and promoted any plans she might form. Her sister died, the 
school was discontinued, and the change from her former pursuits to 
that of a woman of society, which was inevitable, as she was obliged, 
of course, to preside at her husband's dinners and receptions, and to pay 
visits in return, was very irksome to her, until she thought to herself, 
why not use the opportunity to spread her interest and her views in 
regard to kindergartens, in this society which she was constantly meet- 
ing. She found a cordial response to what she no doubt did in a genial 
manner, for she did not make direct appeals for assistance. It was 
her taste and way to interest minds intelligently in the principles and 
leave the results to follow in due time. 

In 1872 Mrs. Schrader went to Berlin to live. This was two years 
after the Baroness Marenholtz had left it for Dresden. While in Berlin, 
Mad. M. had founded the Frdbel society, but soon retired from it, 
because of a difference among the members as to the policy to be 
pursued. Mad. Meyer was also a member at that time, and left subse- 
quently, for similar reasons. Mrs. Schrader accepted an invitation to 
join, but finding very soon that the leaders were more schoolmasters 



VISITS TO KINDERGARTENS— BERLIN. 467 

than kindergartners, she, too, retired. " After this," Mrs. Schrader 
"writes, " I was one day asked to take interest in a kindergarten for the 
poor, founded by Madame Marenholtz and some of her friends, which 
■was quite independent of the Frobel society, and at that time waa 
•without a head, and had its support from a few people who did not like 
to abandon it. With these my husband and I formed a new associa- 
tion, in which Mrs. Bertha Meyer and others became interested, because 
it was a work for the poor. Of the executive committee of this asso- 
ciation I became the president, and Mad. Meyer a member. 

" In the winter of 1874 I was asked to give to a small audience some 
lectures on the ideas of Frobel, which met with warm sympathy from 
many ladies, who became my best friends and supporters in my work. 
Witli Mad. Meyer I soon after became quite intimate, and her hus- 
band helped me a great deal in all matters of business connected with 
the kindergarten. Its support came in part from tlie subscriptions of 
the members of our association, in part from gifts and the help of 
people who had not any particular interest for the thing itself, but 
wished to please me and my husband. 

" The kindergartners whom I found at work could not execute my 
ideas, so I asked my friend and pupil, Fraulein Annette Scheffel, to 
take the direction of it in April, 1874. At the same time, we both be- 
gan to give private lessons, in order to train our own assistants. My 
work in this small circle of ladies of which I have spoken gives me 
great satisfaction, but I must say that outside of it I have encoun- 
tered many difficulties. The older Frohel society is widely spread, has 
money, an exterior organization, with a school director for president, 
which has converted kijidergartening into school-work, and trained 
kindergartners to become inferior and cheaper teachers. In our time, 
people are so fond of positive knowledge and of such methods as will 
employ the hands of children in making pretty little things for show. 
Besides, mothers like to have kindergartners take a great deal of work 
off their hands. Of course, those who like these ways did not like mine, 
as I can show very little in comparison, my opinion being that at the 
kindergarten age the work ought to be interior and preparatory. The 
kindergartners ought not to be trained to take the mothers' places, but 
only to help them. I have all those against me, also, who, disliking 
the kindergartens such as they ustxally are, and not knowing my ideas, 
think mine is founded on the same principle — condemning thus, with- 
out inquiry, every work that bears the name of kindergaiten. My 
work, therefore, proceeds slowly, but I believe, nevertheless, firmly and 
surely. 

"The Frobel society wanted tl:e state to take more interest in the 
kindergarten, and addressed the Minister of Public Instruction on the 
subject. He replied that he could not give any effectual help until he 
knew it was really useful, but that he would take steps to ascertain 
this. Accordingly, he requested all masters of public schools to record. 



468 VISITS TO KINDEKGARTENS— BERLIN. 

and forwai-d their observations on the children that had come to them 
from kindergartens. These children, in general, were badly judged. The 
information thus acquired was often second-hand, being given by the 
head-master, while the under teachers alone had to do with these chil- 
dren, and because there was no mention made whether the children 
came from real, genuine kindergartens, or only from insignificant infant 
schools, of which we have a great number. Among the schools there 
were two into which I thought our children had gone, that gave very dif- 
ferent reports about them from any of the others. I knew the head- 
master of one of these schools. A year before, he had spoken to me of 
the children that had come to him from my kindergarten. He said 
some of them were the best children in the school, quite model pupils, 
and that others were remarkable for their moral conduct. Later, I saw 
his written report, which corroborated his personal statement to me. 
The report of the other school was bad. What does this prove ? 

"In my opinion, however, schools cannot be taken as the test by 
which to judge of the kindergarten. Some of these schools are very 
bad. Children going out of good kindergartens cannot endure them. 
Besides, it is not the only aim of the kindergarten to prepare children 
for public schools. To have a just idea of the results obtained, moth- 
ers and families should be asked to add their information." 
The Kindergarten. 

I will now endeavor to describe Mrs. Schrader's kindergarten. For 
a few years it increased very little, for Mrs. Schrader, having very 
decided ideas of her own as to what a kindergarten should be, was un- 
willing to increase the number of children until she had trained assist- 
ants who could do what she believed to be child-culture. Three or four 
years ago, after having hitherto been in uncomfortable quarters, the 
kindergarten was moved into an excellent room in Steinmitz street, 
with Mrs. Schrader's friend, Annette Scheffel, installed over it as direct- 
ress. Eight rooms are occupied by the different departments. Added 
to these are bath-room, dispensary and store-room. A close intimacy 
is kept up with the mothers, whose needs and wants are fully and 
judiciously supplied. The most important supply furnished is pure 
milk, for the infants of the poorer class are ordinarily fed on beer, and 
the death rate is large. So great a change has been produced by this 
alteration of their diet, that the families whose children attend the 
kindergarten seemed quite renewed physically as well as morally. At 
these rooms, bath-tubs of all sizes are kept, to be loaned to the mothers 
whenever wanted. This kindergarten may be said to be a combination 
of what are called, with us, Mrs. Shaw's day nurseries, and the kinder- 
gartens which these nurseries often contain under the same roof, with 
separate matrons. In Mrs. Schrader's kindergarten, an efficient and 
motherly matron is always in attendance, night and day, as she lives 
in furnished apartments, ready to give out supplies whenever needed. 
Cod-liver oil, wine and extract of beef are prominent articles. I also 



3 



VISITS TO KINDERGARTENS— BERLIN. 469 

saw rolls of flannel, and linen bandages, and second-hand garments of 
every description. These are brought to the rooms, and mothers and 
the elder girls in the families are taught to repair and make them over 
to the best advantage. This is a very interesting part of the work. 
Children, and even grown people, feel a greater interest in preparing 
articles they want than in learning to mend and make with only the 
learning as an object. 

In the first room I entered were ten or twelve babies, under three 
■ years old, drawing their dolls in little baby carriages, and one dressing 
his doll for the day. Balls, ninepins, reins and implements for work 
abounded. A quiet young girl, who seemed to be in full sympathy 
with them, was in charge. Twice during the morning these little 
things were allowed a pleasure they enjoyed greatly — going into the 
next room where children a little older than themselves were playing 
their games. On that day the game was washing, ironing and man- 
gling their dolls' clothes, and putting into wardrobes or bureaus, which 
they constructed with sticks, blocks and whatever other material they 
needed and asked for. The older children had cut out many paper 
garments for these children's dolls. One little dot of a girl was fold- 
ing pocket handkerchiefs and towels, and when she had done this she 
picked up some three-inch sticks and then, as if talking to herself, and 
wholly unconscious of anything else, said, " Now little sticks, you must 
be my wardrobe ; " at the same time her busy fingers made the ward- 
robe, and the handkerchiefs were placed in it with great care. An- 
other tiny little thing had done her washing very nicely, giving special 
attention to the rinsing; she was now ready to hang them up, and 
called for sticks, which she laid on the table to make her drying frame ; 
when fully dry, according to her baby judgment, she told the sticks 
they must now be a bureau, and into a bureau they were soon trans- 
formed, which received the clothes when they were properly ironed and 
folded. Before the children are given their work they are told to give 
their attention, for not more than a minute, to something the kinder- 
gartner has to show, and this one moment is the base of their study for 
the day. If asked to give their attention too long there would be a 
failure, for a very young child cannot keep its attention on one thing 
long at a time without a strain. 

The third gift was on the table in the next room (the divided cube). 
As it was the Emperor's birthday, some one child had built an arch 
through which he was to pass. All the rest of the children caught the 
idea and made arches for the procession — various arches and monu- 
ments in his honor. Finally a flag was thought of, and all wanted 
flags. These flags had been manufactured by the older children on 
some state occasion and were now lent, so that the jubilee was com- 
plete, and it would, perhaps, have suited the emperor far better than 
the celebration gotten up a few days later in his honor, for this was 
perfectly spontaneous, and given with a heartiness that went to my 



470 VISITS TO KII«n)ERGAKTKNS— BERLIX. 

heart. In another room, children were weaving, but the difference be- 
tween tliis and other kindergartens consisted in some of the mats being 
real mats, woven from listing, which were to be carried home for use, 
and each one felt conscious that he was one of a little community that 
had something to do of which each could perform a part. The quiet 
simplicity and dignity of the children, as they worked, was past belief 
if it had not been seen. 

The next room was the play-room, where some impromptu play was 
going on — the dramatizing of something that had really happened, 
their imaginations filling up any lack of incidents. This was a true 
picture of Frobel's own doings. He seized upon the rugged mount- 
ain at Keilhau as soon as he and his pupils got there, to mould it to his 
purposes — digging out rocks and making a path up to a pretty opening 
that was to serve as a resort, for they scarcely had anything to live in 
there at first that could be called a house. Mrs. Schrader had caught 
his spirit truly. 

Our next visit was to the music-room where the elder children re- 
paired every day to have a real concert. Four drums and the same 
number of tambourines, cymbals and castanets were used by the chil- 
dren to accompany the piano. The time was not perfect, but almost 
incredible for such wee children, and they were very happy and self- 
possessed. Strongly accented tunes were played, and those who fully 
understand how children revel in such music, can perhaps faintly imagine 
how these rhythmical waves filled the little hearts with delight. This, 
like all the other occupations, was of short duration — about fifteen min- 
utes perhaps — as long as each one could do his part without weariness. 

As we crossed the hall we saw a little boy and girl washing dolls' 
clothes. The little boy was washing in a tiny tub on a bench just be- 
fore him. There stood a set kettle low enough for his use, scoured as 
bright as copper can be ; this work is all done by the children, each 
child leaving it as clean and bright as it is found. A line hung within 
reach upon which was a row of fairy stockings, drawers, skirts, dresses, 
aprons, etc., fastened with tiny clothes' pins. These clothes were air- 
ing after having been ironed, and I never saw nicer work done. The 
little flat-irons were just the right size. Indeed, it was a perfect laun- 
dry, and I now saw the charm of it. The dear dolls were waiting to 
be dressed, and when that was done, the night-gowns were to be washed. 
Here was a motive for work quite at the child's level. It brought puie 
delight because it had an immediate object which a dreary practice in 
laundry work would not have had. 

This year there are ten children who have been through the kinder- 
garten, and now form an advanced class. This will sound like a para- 
dox to those who know that in Germany all children are required to go 
to school at six years of age, and the kindergarten has not been ac- 
cepted as a part of public instruction. The influence of this particular 
kindergarten has been such, and so marked upon the children and their 



VISITS TO KINDERGARTENS-BERLIN. 471 

families, that the law is not strictly enforced in this instance, though it 
was so in the early part of its existence. Indeed, this is the first year 
any have been allowed to remain any length of time after it is known 
or suspected that they are six or more. It is the complaint of all the 
kindergartners I meet here that the children are not allowed to remain 
long enough. The children of this advanced kindergarten, having had 
all their faculties so naturally cultivated, can tell little incidents in very 
pretty and concise language ; they are then asked to write down what 
they have said, which they readily do, and then it is examined as to its 
value ; anything that is wrong is nmde right, and then the children read 
it and spell the words. It can easily be seen how much ground this can 
be made to cover legitimately without an arbitrary direction. 

The pots in which the children cultivate plants have a tiny picture 
or arrangement of bright colors pasted on according to the taste of the 
child, who thus knows it for his own, having done it himself. The 
hooks for the coats and hats are marked in a similar way on frames 
they make themselves. Parents of the better classes sometimes come 
and ask to have their children admitted, and plead that they shall be 
put in a class of the better grade. The parents are told there is no 
difference, that all are good and clean, and are asked to go through the 
rooms and see for themselves if there is any one place they would 
choose over another. Without an excei^tion no choice is made. The 
decided liberality of Mrs. Schrader's views is apparent in this. She 
does not think it best to have many children in one class, because she 
wishes to have everything as nearly like family life as possible. The 
directress. Miss Scheffel, is a lady of the cultivated class. She takes 
no class herself, and is thus free to listen and to watch for the needs 
and opportunities of the children. This kindergarten has been work- 
ing quietly because Mrs. Schrader knew she coi\ld not accomplish much 
without the right helpers. Her first object is to train thoroughly such 
persons as would make sure the quality of the work for many years. 
The kindergartners of her own training are women who are not so set 
in school ideas that they are unable to accept the new education freely. 
The whole atmosphere is growth, the principal aim to secure spon- 
taneous ideas. Mi's. Schrader confines herself less to the kindergarten 
material proper than any kindergartner that I have known, but she 
knows how to take hold of ctl:.r tilings in the Frobelian spirit. If a 
box is wanted, boxes are the occupation of the day. The folding, cut- 
ing, pasting and ornamenting of the covers are done by the children, 
and they are not only for themselves but for the younger ones who are 
not able to do it. Whether it is beads, seeds, bits of wool, or a few 
pine needles that are picked up when walking, there is always an oppor- 
tunity to preserve them. From the beginning Mrs. Schrader has 
desired to have a work-school connected with her kindergarten, and 
last year it was established. Fancy work of various kinds, plain knit- 
ting, wood carving, basket-making, willow mat weaving, etc., I saw pur-. 



472 VISITS TO KINDEBGAETENS-BERLIN. 

sued here. The school is open two hours in the afternoon. Here, as 
throughout the whole establishment, the natural needs are first attended 
to. An advanced school has also been opened, based on natural princi- 
ples, finding science and art and their uses in the needs of the moment. 
The varied world of enjoyment arising out of this movement fills the 
life here with a continual charm that is at first surprising, but when 
one sees it with heart as well as eyes, the wonder is that any kinder- 
garten should be kept on any other basis. I have not mentioned that 
the children are invited to come back in the afternoons if they wish to 
do so, to carry on any work in which they may be interested. The 
children, who have left the kindergartens and gone into other schools, 
are also invited, and they come regularly on Wednesday and Saturday 
afternoons. They go into the work rooms, or play with the young ladies 
who are being trained for kindergartners, who preside over these meet- 
ings without any superintendence by Miss Scheffel. This is the mode 
in which these young ladies become acquainted with the children. 

The tables in Mrs. Schrader's kindergarten are not lined. She 
thinks the lines draw the attention from the true artistic work, which 
needs training of the eyes, according to the opinion of the most suc- 
cessful German teacher of drawing, Peter Schmidt. The result in Mrs. 
Schrader's kindergarten is very fine. 



To this account of Mrs. Aldrich we add a few extracts from a very 
attractive and instructive volume by Miss Lyschinska, entitled *" The 
Kindergarten Principle — its Educational Value and Chief Applica- 
tions.^' Miss Lyschinska is superintendent of Method in Infant Schools 
under the School Board of London, and she credits to her association 
with one of Frbbel's family, Henrietta Schrader (nee Breyman) of Ber- 
lin, and her tuition, her knowledge of the Kindergarten Principles as 
developed in this volume. The opening chapter is devoted to " A Ger- 
man Kindergarten," the institution established by Mrs. Schrader, and in 
which Mrs. Aldrich sees so much to admire. 



•Published by W. Isbister, 56 Ludgate Hill, 1880. 180 pages with numerous illus- 
trations. 



CEITICISMS ON TEOEBEL'S SYSTEM AND ITS EXTENSION. 

BY MADAME A. DE POKTUGALL.* 
InspectreBs of Infant Schools in the Canton'of Geneva. 



I. CRITICISMS CONSIDERED. 

The views of Froebel, a man of original mercurial genius, working inde- 
pendently of all traditions, were sure to provoke criticism and opposition. 
The objections to their practical application may be grouped as follows : 
1, Expense; 2, social disturbance; and 3, violations of pedagogic canons. 

1. Objections on account of Expense. 

That the new education, covering several years of the child's life not 
befcTJ utilized for purposes of development, and requiring space, con- 
structions, equipment, and skilled personal attention, calls for expenditure 
of money, cannot be denied; but the results should, and we believe do, 
justify this expenditure. 

Spacious and well-ventilated premises, halls for work and for play, a 
yard and a garden, are indispensable. If we add the expenses of the 
management and the material, numerous and capable teachers, it will be 
seen that to establish and support Kindergartens imposes great sacrifices, 
and that the municipalities and governments must be entirely convinced 
of the excellence of these institutions before they can be expected to swell 
their budgets for the purpose of founding them. "We shall not insist 
upon the very imperative reasons which make us think that the expenses 
of construction and management will tend to increase rather than dimin- 
ish. Tlie quite practical solution which some Belgian cities, Liege, for 
example, and the Canton of Geneva, in Switzerland, have given to this 
question is the best answer to these criticisms. The Kindergartens of 
Liege are communal establishments, for which that city makes great sac- 
rifices. The large number of children on their list (3,200 children in 1876) 
proves that they are in high favor, and that the Froebelian institutions 
are highly appreciated by the population. 

In Geneva the Kindergartens still bear the name of Infant Schools, but 
the method of Froebel is applied in them. The law of October 19, 1872, 
while leaving the initiative to the communes, placed the schools under 
the surveillance of the Cantonal authorities. The law is as follows : 

Art. 17. One infant school at least is established by the Commune. 
The Department of public instruction approves the regulations of these 
schools and watches their progress. The Council of State grants a 
subsidy for the creation and maintenance of the infant schools. 

Art. 18. The infant schools are optional and gratuitous; they receive 
children until they are six years of age, and are directed by mistresses 
onH snh-mistresses. 

-xiv . 19. The salaries of the mistresses and sub-mistresses are fixed by 
the State. The premises are furnished by the commune. 

•Paper tn Proceedings of International Congress, 1880. Translated by Mrs. Mann. 



474 CRITICISMS ON FROEBEL'S SYSTEM AND ITS EXTENSION. 

This law has taken full effect. There are scarcely five or six communes 
in the Canton of Geneva that are not already provided vrith Kindergartens. 
Every child who attends them costs the Commune and the Canton on an 
average twenty-four francs per year, or two francs per month. These 
grants are established by the budget of the Canton of Geneva for the 
years 1879 and 1880. In this moderate sum are comi^rised all the expenses 
of the Froebel material, the salaries of the mistresses, the courses of in- 
struction for the teachers, etc., etc. 

The construction of the buildings and the furniture are not included. 
These figures prove that the cost of the Kindergartens is not great. 
Whoever compares these expenses with those incurred by the old Salks 
cVAsyle, for which the maximum expense rose to fifty centimes per child 
per month, will feel that the establishment of the Kindergartens is an 
onerous charge. But if the governments and the contributors think that 
the system created by Froebel is the basis of a good public instruction 
and constitutes a progress in school institutions, we think they will not 
recoil from sacrifices which we have by no means exaggerated. 

2. Kindergartens do not meet the wants of the Poor, 
1. M. R. de Guimps, in his Philosophy and Practice of Education, re- 
marks: "The Kindergarten could not receive the great mass of the 
children of the poor;" and others go still further, and assert that the 
very excellences of the Kindergarten, — its regularity, order, neatness, 
and happiness, are incompatible with the harsh necessities of not a few 
families in all cities and villages. This is not a full statement of the case. 
The poor child in these institutions does enjoy comfort and happiness, 
but that is precisely what Froebel intended. The child is indeed happy 
there ; as its gaiety and contentment, its whole expression, prove it. Placed 
there under a motherly direction, surrounded by little companions, it 
enjoys a true family life, which the paternal home can rarely furnish. 
The father, and often the mother, obliged to work for the maintenance 
of their children, abandon their domestic hearth every day, leaving their 
children in the care of an aged or infirm grandmother, or perhaps of a 
neighbor who often has something else to do than to watch them. What 
dangers do not the poor little ones run! And these are the little deserted 
waifs whom the Kindergarten collects, to whom it offers a happy and 
busy life. But the taste for neatness and order which the Kindergarten 
inculcates on its little pupils, and which the latter carry home, is an inap- 
preciable gain to them instead of a cruelty. The child does not like to 
go to school improperly clothed, badly washed and badly combed. He 
knows that he will be spoken to by the teacher, and we shall find that lie 
insists upon his mother's giving him the most indispensable physical care. 
Thanks to his constant importunities and improved habits, order, and 
with order economy, penetrate many dwellings, and insensibly raise the 
moral code of the family. 

2. It is further objected that the Kindergarten interferes with the rights 
of the family. This criticism, if well founded, would be an absolute con- 
demnation of the system of the great Thuringian pedagogue. But let us 
open his works ; let us open the Education of Man ; we find on every 
page the solicitude, the respect, which the sacred institution of the family 



% 



CKITICISMS ON PROEBEL'S SYSTEM AND ITS EXTENSION. 4*75 

inspired in Froebel, an institution in which he saw the first elements of 
society. We are certain that those who make this reproach, have never 
read or linown either his thought or his system. Is not that which people 
attack most violently often that which they know least about ? Froebel 
was so preoccupied with the future of the family that all his aspirations 
tended to reform it, to re-edify it, to elevate it. And he confided this 
reform to the mother. How great and noble is the part which Froebel 
assigns to her, and how far we still are from realizing it. How many 
mothers are even the centers of the family life, or acquit themselves of 
their manifold duties, and without assistance? Uncultivated, ignorant 
governesses, these are the assistants they procured up to the day when 
Froebel offered them his Kindergarten. There parents can safely send 
their children every day, and know that they will find in it what their 
home cannot give them, a little world, where, under enlightened direction, 
they will learn to live. And the return home! How many things to 
recount after an absence of some hours! The Kindergarten is necessary 
to the child and to the family, to the rich and to the poor, to the well-to-do 
citizen and to the workman, for it is a humanitarian and a social work. 
It is necQssary for the wife, for the mother; it assists her and forms her 
for her educational mission. 

"In order to establish my work," said Froebel, at the inauguration of 
his Kindergarten at Blankenburg, in Thmingia, in 1840, "I need the 
cooperation of every one, especially of women. Yes, what is necessary 
for my success, is the concurrence of mothers, wives, sisters. I therefore 
make a serious appeal, not only to the female population of my country, 
of Germany, but to all the civilized world. I place my new institution in 
the hands of women; it is to their zeal and their tenderness that I confide 
this garden, that they may cultivate it and make it prosper by the care 
that they alone can and know how to give." 

3. Pedagogical Objections. 

Some pedagogical critics, who value the school only for certain tradi- 
tional habits and acquisitions — keeping still, and the ability to read, write, 
and cipher, complain that pupils who pass into the school from the Kin- 
dergarten have little or no knowledge, and are often even turbulent and 
impatient of discipline. The mission of the Kindergarten is not to 
impart book knowledge, but its plays and occupations should give intelli- 
gence, and the power of adaptation. But even the friendly critics com- 
plain that this intelligence is often accompanied with a want of concentra- 
tion. But whenever we have met with it and sought out the cause, we 
have been sure that it proceeded from a defective application of the system. 
How many young teachers are not up to their task! how many go astray 
in the method, and take the means for the end, the letter for the spirit! 
Yet we do find some well-directed Kindergartens, although they are still 
too rare, and these furnish excellent pupils to the schools. We have 
verified the fact that the influence of a first rational education continues 
through years of study, and that this influence makes itself felt espec- 
ially when the instruction appeals to reason, logic, and good sense. 

Finally, we believe that the main criticisms made upon Froebel's sys- 
tem proceed from incomplete knowledge of it, from the imperfect appli- 



476 



CRITICISMS ON FROEBEL'S SYSTEM AND ITS EXTENSION. 



cation of it, as well as from a too literal interpretation of it. It is to the 
exaggerated zeal of certain disciples of Froebel, that many criticisms of 
his system are due. Those disciples admit of no changes or modifications 
in the application, and give a stereotyped form to the method; many even 
go so far as to pretend that it cannot be touched without injury. 
This leads us to the second division of our subject. 

II. FURTHER DEVELOPMENT AND ADAPTATIONS. 

The method produced by an original mind can be neither mechanically 
applied, nor servilely imitated. It is to be modified by the influence of 
circumstances, personalities, and national character. The character, the 
tendencies, even the aptitudes, vary in different countries ; the system can 
be modified in its form, while the spirit of it remains the same. 

And how many changes, not foreseen by the founder, have gradually 
been introduced, without ceasing to be faithful to this spirit. With Froe- 
bel, the Kindergarten was only the family enlarged, and was to contain 
but a comparatively small number of children. Now that the Salles d'Asyle 
and the infant schools have adopted Froebel's method, we have been 
forced to multiply the plays and occupations, especially for the little 
children who are received at the age of two and one-half years. It has 
been necessary to introduce a whole series of innovations too long to be 
enumerated. In the countries peopled by the Latin races, where the 
children are by temperament more lively and precocious, we must not 
think of imposing the method in all its rigor. It is necessary, besides, to 
admit a period of transition, to concede to the upper class in Kindergart- 
ens some of the branches of instruction of the primary school, particu- 
larly reading and writing. As M. Buisson said in his report upon the 
Vienna Exposition, "What should be absolutely condemned and pro- 
scribed, is not the teaching of reading and writing in the Kindergartens, 
but the preponderant role and abstract character given to these lessons." 
The details of the programme naturally depend upon the usages of each 
country, and even of each city. But it must not be concluded from 
certain concessions and variations needed by the conditions of things, 
that a Salle d'Asyle becomes a Kindergarten as soon as a little weaving and 
pricking are introduced into it. These superficial adaptations are neither 
desirable nor useful ; something more is necessary than the material and 
the manual application of it; the thought that presided over the organiza- 
tion of the method, the spirit of Froebel, these are what are necessary to 
animate and vivify the whole. 

As to new industrial adaptations, these are possible, but not before a 
certain age; they must not be thought of for little children. The braiding 
of straw, an easy transition from the weaving of paper, might be intro- 
duced in an upper class of the Kindergarten, together with many system- 
atic occupations ; folding and cutting may be transformed into box-mak- 
ing; and we should recommend to pupils from eight to ten years of age 
rattan basket-making, which we have seen more than once well executed 
by children who had been in Kindergartens. But we must not presume 
too far on the strength of the little pupils. 

As to the influence exercised by the embroidery work of Froebel upon 
needle-work, it is no longer contested. 



CRITICISMS ON FROEBEL'S SYSTEM AND ITS EXTENSION. 417 

The fundamental principle of tlie modern school is the unity in educa- 
tion. But this unity does not exclude a graduated division. The great 
whole of school institutions is divided into several steps ; each step is a 
preparation for that which follows. The Kindergarten, being the first 
step, must be in intimate connection with the primary school, to which it 
serves as a basis. 

This connection will only be possible when, on one side, the Kindergart- 
ners shall receive good normal training, and on the other, every primary 
instructor, male or female, shall be initiated into Froebel's system. 

III. SPECIAL NORMAL TRAINING. 

We think a measure analogous to the decree of the 27th of June, 1872, 
by the Minister of Public Instruction in Austria, should be introduced in 
every country where there is compulsory instruction. The teachers of 
Kindergartens, as well as the primary-school teachers, should be com- 
pelled to submit to normal training, and to pass through examinations for 
their certificate of capacity. To a certain point the normal training given 
to teachers of every degree would be identical. It would be the same for 
the principles, the same for the method, but there would be special instruc- 
tion, according to the stage of teaching to which the candidate was going 
to consecrate himself. The theory and practice of the Kindergarten, 
including the study of psychology and general pedagogy, would be one 
of these specialties. 

In conclusion, we would say that the Kindergartner should be thor- 
oughly acquainted with the programme and organization of the primary 
grade of instruction, an 'indispensable condition if she wishes to prepare 
pupils for the primary school so that they can pursue its studies with profit. 

The primary-school teachers should study the Froebelian pedagogy, in 
order to understand the principles upon which their pupils have been 
prepared, for there are as many points of contact between the Kinder- 
garten and the primary school, as between different classes of the latter. 

Is it desirable to apply the principles of Froebel in primary instruction ? 

Better to answer this important question, let us examine to what degree 
of development the little pupil has arrived, who leaves the Kindergarten 
for the primary school at the age of six or seven years. 

If tie has attended a good Froebelian institution for three or four years, 
he will certainly have acquired the gift of seeing for himself, the gift of 
observation. Questioned upon objects that are daily striking his attention, 
he ought to be able to express what he sees and what he conceives in 
simple and precise language. He ought to be capable of designating each 
object which is familiar to him by its name; he ought to be able to give 
an account of the properties of things, of their practical use, to know 
their relations of size and number, to distinguish their colors, etc. Be- 
sides this general knowledge, he should be already developed in reference 
to individual and inventive work. 

At this period the character of the child should have been outlined; 
conscience, will, and moral sense should be already developed in him. 
He should have attained that degree of human development in which, 



478 CRITICISMS ON PROEBEL'S SYSTEM AND ITS EXTENSION. 

without prejudice to the sentiment of personal dignity, he comprehends 
that he is to submit voluntarily and fully to the rule which is the law for 
the whole. He ought to know how to obey spontaneously, from a senti- 
ment of obedience ; that is, he ought to have learned to love what is good 
and detest what is evil. The love of his neighbor, the first germ of love 
to God, the germ of religious feeling, should have bloomed in his heart. 

As to the physical development we will not insist. Every day, every 
hour passed in the Kindergarten contributes to the development of 
strength, skill, and grace. 

, Is the child ready to begin study, properly so-called? Is the school 
ready to receive him? 

Has the school, as it is organized to-day, a programme, a system of dis- 
cipline and instruction adapted to continue the work of the Troebelian 
system? If we take everything into consideration in the public school 
which the child attends from his sixth to his fourteenth year, we say with- 
out hesitation, no. We recognize the progress that has been made, the 
immense path traversed, but for causes too numerous to be summed up 
here, from our own personal experience especially, we think there is room 
for a reform, the first step of which would be to provide a transition 
between the Kindergarten and the school. The founder of the Froebeliaa 
method, persuaded "that there is no leap in the human mind," that 
everything is coordinated, and that its development must also be coordi- 
nated, demanded this intermediate class between the Kindergarten and 
the school. This intermediate class, which he called the upper class of 
the Kindergarten, was the object of his solicitude, and we will study the 
hints which we meet upon the subject in his works, and the ways and 
means to realize its existence. 

Intermediate Class. 

According to Froebel, the plays, talks, exercises, and occupations of 
the system should be continued in this intermediate class. The occupa- 
tions are far from being exhausted in the Kindergarten proper; they are 
scarcely half disposed of; they should be continued, then, and a more 
preponderating part given to the instruction, of which they represent the 
intuitive element; the building-blocks, the sticks, the folding, the weav- 
ing, etc., help the processes of calculation and intuitive geometry. The 
folding into squares, rectangles, triangles, etc., will initiate the child into 
the knowledge of a great many plane figures, their different angles, the 
value of these angles in relation to their position, etc. In the same man- 
ner, the building, modeling, and box-making will initiate him into the 
knowledge of solids. These exercises, which are quite intuitive, are the 
point of departure for plane geometry and stereometry (or the measuring 
of solids), whose elements the child acquires witliout scientific definitions, 
or having recourse to abstraction. Not a lesson can pass without his 
being called upon to compare the relations of objects and their properties. 

The rings and the sticks, used separately or in combination, give an 
opportunity for invention, and the charming figures that can be made 
with them, and afterwards copied, give a great attraction and a powerful 
impulse to drawing, for the Kindergarten hardly exhausts the elements 



CRITICISMS ON PROEBEL'S SYSTEM AND ITS EXTENSION. 4T9 

which prepare for the admirable method of linear drawing that Froebel 
composed. It is in the intermediate class and the primary school that the 
teaching of linear drawing will find its true place. It constitutes an 
excellent preparation for the study of penmanship, of which the pupil 
now gains his first notions. 

It is well known that the use of the little sticks in the Kindergarten is 
the preparation for arithmetic. The child counts there with these sticks as 
he counted with counters, cubes, etc., without going beyond twelve. In 
the intermediate class, he does not go beyond twenty, but restrained in 
these limits, he passes intuitively through all the .^different operations of 
arithmetic, progressing strictly from the known to the unknown, imitat- 
ing the little sticks upon the slate, then gradually replacing them by fig- 
ures. As to the talks and object lessons to which selected poems serve as 
illustrations, they take a more instructive character in the intermediate 
class, and serve (as well as in the lower classes of the primary school) as 
preparation for natural history and geography. But another advantage 
can be taken of them. At the end of every talk the teacher can sum up, 
in a few simple, clear, concise sentences, some elementary notions to 
which the little story or object-lesson has led. These short propositions, 
pronounced clearly and correctly, are the points of departure for the 
study of the mother-tongue, or rather of its first steps, reading. Then 
these propositions can be analyzed into words (five or six words), the 
words into syllables, the syllables into sounds. This first initiation into 
the constituent elements of language may occupy six months at least, and 
prepare for the reading lessons which the child will receive in the lower 
stage of the primary school. Then the symbol, the sign, the letter will 
be given him for the sound which he knows. This preparatory work 
abridges and facilitates the study of reading, takes from it all its dryness, 
and secures its results. This intermediate class for children six or seven 
years old is a very important one. We will even say that we think it 
indispensable, in order to secure, through the coming years of study, the 
advantages of Froebel's system; indispensable to the primary school, 
provided the primary school accepts the Kindergarten as its basis, and its 
points of departure, and consents to be the continuation, the natural con- 
sequence of it. The intermediate class opens the way; it alone can ren- 
der possible the introduction and application of the principles of Froebel 
to the primary school ; it is the necessary link which will one day make 
of the Kindergarten and the primary school an organized whole. 

Education by Doing. 
But the intermediate class is, as we have said, only the first step of the 
reform which Froebel looked forward to for the present primary school. 
This reform is to consist especially in the introduction of the Froebelian 
principle of work, of intelligent, naethodical work, which demands the 
concurrence of all the activities of the child, and which procures him the 
satisfaction that every effort brings which is crowned with success. To 
make work anything but a hard and inevitable law, to make it loved for 
the pure enjoyment of which it is the source, this is to be the result of 
the Kindergarten in the future. 



480 CRITICISMS ON FROEBEL'6 SYSTEM AND ITS EXTENSION. 

A great point in this conception of work is that it alone permits the 
parallel development of the physical and intellectual forces. The thought 
of organizing classes of industrial labor does not date from the present 
time; and wherever the trial has been made, it has given excellent results.* 
The pupils prepared in the Kindergartens occupy a distinguished place in 
them, and prove their skill and intelligence. To introduce manual labor, 
we are told, is an impossible thing; the programmes are never executed. 
Where is the necessary time? We are among those who think that in the 
actual execution of the programmes there is much time lost, many forces 
frittered away. Before his tenth or eleventh year the child is still too 
young to be restrained'during several consecutive hours in a purely Intel- 
lectual labor, without injuring the development of his faculties. Besides, 
reading, writing, arithmetic, having been prepared for in a rational man- 
ner, the difficulties and delays against which the teacher has struggled, 
and which absorb much precious time, no longer existing, we should see 
the hours of study diminish of themselves. Three hours a day conse- 
crated to actual study would be sufficient, and would allow two hours 
devotion to manual labor. The progress of the pupils, far from suffering 
by it, would gain by it; for the child, always on the alert and well dis- 
posed, would beam with pleasure and eagerness. The occupations of the 
Froebel method, developed and adapted to the age of the pupils, would 
find their place here, and would do excellent service, especially in the first 
two or three classes of the primary school. The branches mentioned in 
the following list are those whose introduction into the programme of the 
primary school we think both desirable and possible. We join to the list 
of the occupations the number of hours that might be devoted to them: 
weaving, two hours a week; paper-cutting, one hour; folding, two hours; 
drawing, two hours; modeling, two hours; box-making, two hours. 

It results from what precedes, that the question of introducing the 
principles of Froebel into the primary school should be, according to us, 
answered in the affirmative, but that this introduction is only possible by 
the assistance of an intermediate class, annexed as an upper step to the 
Kindergarten, and forming the connection between this and the primary 
school, which, on its side, is to adopt the principles of the great philo- 
sophic pedagogue. To develop the instrument of labor, the hand, and 
also the intelligence, to make the body strong and supple, and the mind 
lucid and profound, to educate men and not scholars, would not this be a 
great step towards tlie solution of the social problem? We will not deny 
that this aim is an ideal one, but we think with our great compatriot, 
Emmanuel Kant, " that we ought to educate children not according to 
the present condition of the human race, but according to a better possible 
condition in the future, that is to say, according to the idea of humanity, 
and its completed destiny." 

* See BarnarfTs Journal of Education : 

Labor in Juvenile Ueform Schools, III., 13. 382, 393, 560, 821. 

Kindeiinimn and Schools of Bohemia, XXVII., 811. 

RcaliHiic Studios and Labor, XVII., :«, 151 ; XIX., 628; XXI., 202. 

.„ , , 1 .. 1 , 1. :.. T.> _.. /T. 11.. v\Tri •}•} . vvi iionn. v 



Technical Schools in Eu 
Labor Element in Sys 



Europe Generally. XVII., :»; XXL, il-SOO; XXVIII., 1014. 
tems of Pestalozzi, Pellenberg, and Wehrli, X., 81 ; XXX., 203. 



Lahor ililemenc in systems oi resmio/.zi, reiienueiy, uiiu »» 
Manual Labor in American Schools, XV., 231 ; XXVII., 257. 
Labor Element in Eufjlish Schools, X., 765; XXIL, 23-250. 



KINDERGARTEN AND CHILD CULTURE IN FRANCE. 



INFANT ASYLUMS— CRADLE SCHOOLS— KINDERQABTEN. 

Asylums for children form a subject of the greatest interest and ini])ortance, 
))articiilarly in a country like France, where the custom of sending infants out 
to be nursed has been universally prevalent for a long time. The social posi- 
tion of the parents will of course determine the fate which awaits the tender 
infant during the first months of its existence. If the parents be wealthy, or 
even belong to the middle class, a healthy nurse is procured, according to the 
advice of an experienced physician ; nothing is left undone that tends to ameli- 
orate the condition of the infant, and all possible precautions are taken to meet 
successfully the many dangers incidental to its young life. Far different is the 
case with that vast majority of infants whose parents cither live; in abject 
poverty, or who, in order to earn a scanty livelihood, are both obliged to work 
from early morn till late at night away from homo. That which, with rich 
jyarents, is only a close aillierence to alon<r-cstabiished custom, intended to meet 
the wants of an effeminate ago, becomes to j)oor ])eo])lc a dire necessity. 

The danger of this whole system of seiid'ing infants out to 1)0 nursed was fully 
exposed by M. Mayer, who, in his cai)acity as physician, could sj)eak from 
ex])crionco, and in 18C5 he j)ublishcd anapjjcal to the public, in which he says: 

" This is a crusade which we are going to wage against an absurd and bar- 
barous custom, that of abandoning, a few hours after its birth, a elierislu'd 
b.iing, wlios(! ailvent has been ardently desired, to the can^ of a rough ])easant- 
wonian, whom the parents have never s(!en before, whose character and maimers 
the real mother does not know, who carries away th(! dearest treasure to some 
unknown village in the ])rovinees, the iiMine of which ])erha])S is not even given on 
the map of France. There is sonii'lhing so I'lvolting to the moral sense in this, 
that twenty years hence it will hardly be credited. There are excellent mothers 
who resignedly submit to this sacrifice without any other sign of being shocked 
than some furtive tears, which they carefully hide, as too great an indulgence 
to human weakness. If we add that the mother has not always even the satisfac- 
tion of placing the newly-born itifant directly in the hands of the pers<m who is 
to nurse it, but that at certain s(^asons of tho year women from the country 
come to Paris to gather the nurselings i;iid to distribute them afterwards through 
the provinces, we shall seem to exceed the bounds of truth; yet this is strictly 
in accordance with the facts, and it foriui a regular branch of industry, a trade 
no less productive of strange d(iveloi)meiils than the slave-trade." 

To remedy this state of things M. Mayer proposed to form a " Socictij for the 
protection of infants," the aim of which is to be: 

1. To guard the infants against the dangers usually attending the nursing by 
hired nurses, far from their parents, without sufficient superintendence and 
without satisfactory guarantee. 

2. To put into practice the regulations laid down by the present advanced 
medical science for the physical development of infants, before tuidjcrtaking to. 
cultivate their mental powers. 31 



482 SUPPLEMENTARY SCHOOLS AND ASYLUMS IN FKANCE. 

3. To pursue simultaneously at a suitable age the physical, moral, and intel- 
lectual trainiug of the child. 

This society is to attain this threefold end hy estahlisliing so-called " Maternal 
colonies" in the neighborhood of the great cities, and providing them with 
carefully-selected nurses; also with milch-cows of superior breed, to furnish the 
milk required for artificial nursing, and by a system of rewards given to those 
nurses who accomplish their task in the best manner. 

The efforts of M. Mayer have led to the organization of societies in Lyons, 
Bordeaux, Marseilles, and Rouen to carry out the idea. 

GARDERIES. 

But even under the most favorable circumstances, even with a devoted and 
attentive nurse, the pain fulness of the infant's separation from its mother is not 
diminished whether the parents of the child be rich or poor. In the case of 
poor parents there will be additional circumstances to make this separation a 
very painful one. The father and mother are obliged to work incessantly in 
order to gain the means of subsistence, and no other course is left open to them 
than either to confide the infant to the care of the hospital founded by Saint 
Vincent de Paul, or to keep it at home, thus depriving themselves of jiart of 
the earnings indispensable for their living. The charitable societies lend some 
aid in this latter case, but not sufficient ; and when the child hns been weaned, 
and the mother goes out to work again, it is given to the care of a little brother 
or .sister, who generally are sadly in want of being taken care of themselves. 
If the mother confides her infant to a so-called (jardeiie, or to one of those 
"weaning establishments" Mhich have no legal existence, and which, with or 
without the approbation of the mayor, ])ivscril)ed in the regulations, are but too 
often directed by careless women, she has still reason to tremble for the health 
and well being of her infant. In a narrow room, deprived of fresh air and 
light, the unhapi)y creatures are crowded together; their bodily development is 
retarded, and as a natural consetpience their mental powers remain totally 
undeveloped, on account of the incapacity of the superintending women, who 
•rule only by the rod. And even if the mother keeps her child at home on 
Sundays and fesist days the expense will be 70 centimes per day, or 17 fr., 20 
cts. per month. 

CRi;CHE, OK CRADLK-SCIIOOL. 

The evil had certainly reached its climax when, in the year 1P44, M. Marhcau 
paid a visit to one of these establishments. This visit had far-reaching con- 
sequences, and "became in fact the turning point towards a better .system of 
infant-education in France. The woman who had several little infants luuldled 
together in a miserable room, on being questioned gave the following account : 
that as a general rule she had only five or six infants; that her customers paid 
her only eight sous per head, and six sous in addition if she provided food for 
the child ; that in the morning the mothers used to bring clean linen and take 
the soiled away in the evening, when they fetched their children, and that if the 
infants were not yet weaned, the mothers came to nurse tliem themselves at the 
hours when they took their meals. These last words were a ray of light to M. 
Marheau, and gave him the first idea of instituting "cradle-schools." Instead 
of indulging in idle laments on the evil effect of large factories, or making vain 
efibrts to stop the irrepressible march of modern industry, this thoroughly 



SUPPLEMENTARY SCHOOLS AND ASYLUMS IN FRANCE. 483 

honest and common-sense man at once conceived a plan to remedy the evil. 
Two problems were to be solved. As regards the mothers, how a safe guarantee 
could be provided which neither the superintendence of a young child nor an 
old woman could offer; as regards the infants, how th.ey could have the milk 
which nature herself provides in the mother's breast, and the affectionate care 
which their tender age demands. M. Marbcau immediately went to work to 
realize his projects. He gave a full and true account of the actual state of 
affairs to the Department of Benevolent Institutions, of which he was a member, 
and submitted to their ui)])robation his plan for a "cradle-school." A com- 
mittee was appointed, and M. Marbeau charged with the report. He proved in 
this repdf't " that it was a solemn duty to extend aid to these poor mothers and 
])Oor infants; that a cradle-school was possible; that it would cost, all told, 
only about fifty centimes per head: that the expenses of organizing the first 
establishment would be trifling, and easily met by charitable donation ! " This 
report awakened the sympathy of mnny, and though the Department of Benev- 
olent Institutions did not feel justified in giving official aid to this private 
undertaking, yet most of its members, as founders of the establishment, sub- 
scribed a sum towards its support. Contributions came in from all sides, and 
the Duchess of Orleans, by a large donation, completed the required sum. 

On the 14th November, 1844, M. Marbeau was thus enabled to open the first 
institution, organized after bis plan, in one of the most wretched parts of Paris, 
No. 81, Rue de Chaillot. In remembrance of the infancy of our Savior he 
called it creche (manger.) There, in a light and wcll-ventihited room, the 
infants were kept from .'j.30 A. M. till 8.30 P. M. in summer, and from 6.30 
A. M. till 8 P. M. in winter, at tlie small charge of twenty centimes per day 
for each infant. During this time the mothers, who were obliged to go out to 
work, came at certain stated times each day to nurse their childreu, till they 
were weaned.' After the children have all been taken home in the evening the 
room is left open all night, to let the vitiated :iir escape, and be entirely reno- 
vated. Sund.ays and feast days the cradle-school remains closed, in order that 
by thus bringing parents and children together once a week the family-tie may 
not be too much relaxed. Kind, ])atient, and intelligent women attended the 
children all day long, under the superintendence of a lady inspectress, whose 
charity and social position gave sufficient guarantee for their being well cared 
for. A physician was employed to pay daily visits to the school, to attend to 
all cases of sickness, and sec that the children from the iigc of 1 to 3 years were 
supplied with food best suited to their age. 

The rapid success of this institution, wliich soon could not contain the num- 
ber of infants that were sent thither, created (luitoa sensation. It was felt that 
to aid the workihg man in the care and education of his infants was rendering 
a great service to the family, as thereby greater inducements were held out to 
liim to marry, and the general misery of the poorer classes greatly alleviated. 
Frequent enquiries came from all parts of the country in regard to the organi- 
ration of the institution, and numerous visitors convinced themselves, by 
personal inspection, of its successful working. 

In February, 1845, M. Marbcau published his work, entitled: "Cradle 
schools, or the means of lessening the misery of the people by increasing the 
]io])ulation," which (Sept. 10, 1846) was rewarded by the Monthyon prize g'lv^n 
l)y the French Academy. M. Villeniain very apj)ropriately remarked on this_ 
occiision : " Thus is realized whatever there was i)racticable in the theories and 



484 SUPPLEMENTARY SCHOOLS AND ASYLUMS IN FRANCE. 

wishes of some speculative men. The object is not to establish a chimerical and 
oppressive community amongst men, but to give a safe support to the com- 
mencement of life in order to render its after-course easier and better. Here as 
everywhere the work of humanity is a political work. It prepares for the 
family and the state a more numerous, a healthier, and stronger population, 
accustomed from earliest infancy to habits of order, which are the germs of all 
social discipline." 

What favor these institutions found with the public may be inferred from a 
work by M. Jules Delbruck, whose name is worthy to be placed side by side 
with that of the founder, entitled: " Visit to the Model Cradle-School," and his 
" General Report on the Cradle-Schools of Pai-is," both published to\v(irds the 
end of 1846, in which he counts already nine institutions of this kind, containing 
180 cradles, and receiving as many as 223 infants. 

The example of Paris was soon followed by other cities, viz. : Bordeaux, 
Brest, Melun, Metz, Nancy, Nantes, Orleans, and Eennes, and it was likewise 
soon imitated by other countries, Holland, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Austria, 
China, and America. 

February 25th, 1847, M. Dupin, senior, inaugurated the "Society for Cradle 
Schools," which aids in founding and maintaining such establishments in the 
Seine Department. The clergy also sanctioned and encouraged these eiforts ; 
men like Thiers, Dufaure, de Fallou, de Melun, lent their aid, and Emile 
Deschamps made them the subject of some of his most touching poems. 

The central and administrative authorities no less favored the work. An 
imperial decree of February 26, 1862, placed the cradle-school in the same rank 
as the "Maternal Society" and the "Asylums." The empress herself took 
them Tinder her protection, and the Minister of the Interior, M. de Persigny, 
sent his order concerning these schools to the Prefects (dated June 30, 1862). 
The Prefect of the Seine Department likewise strongly recommended them in 
his order of January, 1 863. 

At the Universal Exposition of 1 867, on the day of the opening of the Exposi- 
tion, the Model Cradle-School of Sainte-Marie was opened in the grounds of 
the Exposition for the reception of infants, and was in successful working order 
till the closing of the Exposition. It had a committee of administration, a 
ladies' committee, and a medical committee, and was amply supplied with every 
thing required, linen, kitchen and washing apparatus, and all the implements 
for nursing as well as amusing infants. Special mention is due to the ingenious 
invention of M. Jules Delbruck, called by him la Pouponniere, which must be 
seen to be fully appreciated. He thus describes it : " This piece of furniture I 
call la pouponniere, from the yvord poitpon (an endearing name for quite a small 
child). It forms his first field of activity, as the cradle is his first place of rest. 
The children, if they do not wish to sleep any longer, find here : 1. A place 
where they are safe from all danger; 2. Something to lean upon whilst making 
their first steps; 3. A gallery Avith a double bannister, where they can make 
their first tour of the world; 4. A dining-room, where one woman suffices to 
distribute to them their food, as to a nest full of little birds." Whilst the pou- 
ponniere serves as a dining-room and playground for children who are no longer 
in the cradle, and who, stretched out on a soft carpet, amuse themselves in a 
manner totally unknown to the victims of the old swaddling-clothes system, M. 
Marbeau provides also an exercise for the larger children by an invention which 
he calls la petite diligence, " the little mail coach." Six children who cannot yet 



SUPPLEMENTARY SCHOOLS AND ASYLUMS IN FRANCE. 4S5 

walk are placed in it, three who are old enough to do so, and who are glad to 
serve as horses, are attached to it ; three more push behind, whilst others, armed 
with innocent little whips, gallop alongside of the vehicle, and all this, super- 
intended by a nurse, results in a healthy exercise for some of them, and a capital 
amusement for the others. 

We may safely assert that the object for which the " Cradle-School " was 
placed in the Exposition was fully attained. It was constantly crowded with 
visitors, and not a single objection was raised to its practical operation. In six 
months it threw more light on the wants of the infantile age, and the powerful 
influence of the earliest education, than could otherwise have been done in 
twenty years. It demonstrated how to counteract the dreadful mortality of 
infants (17 per cent, on an average during the first year), which to a large 
degree may be traced to the system of sending children to be nursed away from 
home, or to their careless treatment at home. 

ASYLUMS FOR CHILDREN. 

The idea of instituting asylums for children from the age of three years to 
seven years is of much older date than the cradle-schools. As early as 787 of 
the Christian era we find that a priest (Dateo) founded such an asylum at 
Milan, where poor children were kept, fed, clothed, and instructed up to the 
seventh year of their age. The object of this asylum was to open a place of 
refuge for children of poor parents, to secure them from the dangers of being 
left at home alone, or of roaming about the streets, and to offer an opportunity 
to the parents of following undisturbedly their daily avocation. This benevolent 
idea in founding such asylums is therefore many centuries old, but tlie educa- 
tional idea is more modern ; we find it mentioned by Diderat, in France, 1763 ; 
Betzky, in Prus-ia, 1775; Oberlin and Louisa Schaeppler, 1770; Madame de 
Pastoret, in France, 1801; Robert Owen, in Scotland, 1819; in the letters 
written by Pestalozzi (Switzerland) to M. Greaves in London, in 1818, and in 
the masterly speech of Lord Brougham in the House of Lords, May 21, 183.5. 

Institutions of this kind were started under diffei-ent names in various 
countries. In Germany as " Kleinkinderschule," by the Princess of Lippe- 
Detmold (1807), and the Queen of Wurtemberg (1816 j ; in Scotland and Eng- 
land as "Infant Schools," by Robert Owen (1819); in Italy as " Scuole 
Infantile," by Ferrauta Aposti (1829); in Belgium as "Ecoles Gardicnnes" 
(1827). 

Before entering on the history of these asylums in France we will quote the 
words of Madame Mallet, very clearly defining their object (written in 1835) : 
" The asylum receives the child of the poor during the daytime, whilst the 
mother is working away from home; here it is carefully guarded and instructed; 
here it is happy, and learns to know its duties ; it receives its first religious im- 
pressions, and contracts pure and peaceful habits; secure from the dangers of 
isolation and bad example, it grows in strength of body and mind, and when 
the moment arrives of leaving the asylum, and being cast on the wild sea of 
life, it is better able to keep a clear course amidst its roaring waves. The 
object of the asylum is not only a moral and religious one, but eminently a 
social one, because by guarding the children from all the dangers to which they 
would otherwise bo exposed, we prevent them from becoming dangerous to 
society in after years. The education which the child receives here is the same 
which a good and foithfnl mother would give during the first years of her child's 



486 SUPPLEMENTARY SCHOOLS AND ASYLUMS IN FRANCE. 

life, if she, being endowed with the necessary moral and intellectual faculties, 
could devote all her time to it." 

The first impetus toward establishment of such asylums in France was given 
in 1801 by Madame de Pastoret, but it did not lead to any important results. 
When, however, in 1826, it became known in France that "Infant Schools" 
had been established in England, it was determined to imitate this example at 
once. A committee was appointed under the direction of Abbe Dcsgenettes, 
superintendent of Foreign Missions, and Madame de Pastoret. This committee 
of ladies published a prospectus and solicited contributions, wliich during the 
first year reached ihe amount of 6,901 francs. As this sum was not sufficient, 
an application for aid was sent to the " General Council of Hospitals," which, in 
May, 1826, made a donation of 3,000 francs, and 'gave a house situated in the 
Hue du Bac, where soon eighty children (from 2 to 6 years) were instructed by 
Sisters of Providence de Fortieux. As however the system had not yet been 
fully understood, only two English pamphlets on the subject having been trans- 
lated, enquiries had to be instituted anew. It was at this time (1827) that M. 
Cochin, who, without knowing anything about these efforts of the ladies' com- 
mittee, had privately inaugurated a similar school on a sm.all scale in the Euc 
des Gobelins, was first brought in connection with it. He entered heart and 
soul into their undertaking, and procured an active and persevering person, 
Madame Millet, who was sent to England for the express purpose of studying 
practically the system pursued in the infant schools of that country. M. Cochin 
shortly after went there himself. Having studied the system theoretically, 
whilst Madame Millet had gone through a practical course, they both returned 
to France. This lady at once undertook the superintendence of an asylum in 
the Rue des Martyrs, and M. Cochin, at his own expense, founded tiie great 
free asylum for 1,000 children, wliich since March 22, 1831, has been called 
after his name, and which has not yet been surpassed in excellence by any other 
institution of the kind. During the first two or three years the ladies' com- 
mittee founded three asylums, where 600 children were kept every day. 'This 
of course soon exhausted their slender funds, the contributions diminished, and 
in the month of June, 1829, things came to such a pass that there were only 
1,250 francs in the treasurer's hands, whilst the annual expenses for Paris 
amounted to about 16,000. No other course was left open but to apply again 
for aid to the " General Council of Hospitals." This appeal proved not in vnin, 
for by a decree of this council, published October 23, 1829, and sanctioned by 
the Minister of the Interior, the government took the whole work under its 
protection, and the ladies' committee was charged, Februarys, 1830, with the 
superintendence of all the asylums in the city of Paris. The work now lost its 
private character, and became a public institution, receiving a sure support from 
the government, thus establishing it on a firm basis. 

In July, 1836, a rescript by the Minister of Public Instruction placed the 
asylums from January 1, 1837, under the administration of the school authori- 
ties, created by the law of Juno 28, 1833. The legal existence of the ladies' 
committee thus reached its end, after a period of eleven years, during which 
time it had received, by charitable gifts and subscriptions, the sum of 247,912 
francs 37 centimes, and gradually founded 24 asylums. In spite of this change, 
the ladies of the committee were invited to continue their functions, under the 
title, "Ladies' Directress," and, joyfully consenting, have since that time 
devoted all their leisure hours to this work. When in 1837 a " Committee on 



SUPPLEMENTARY SCHOOLS AND ASYLUMS IN FRANCE. 487 

Asylums " was appointed, all of them found a place in it. Since that time the 
"Asylums for Children " have been reckoned among the primary schools ; their 
future has been fully secured, and little remained to be done but to give a public 
exhibit of their advantages, and the best way of founding and directing; them. 
This was done in 1833 by M. Cochin, who in that year published his " Manual 
for Primary Infant Schools or Asylums." Though this standard work thoroughly 
exhausts the subject, it was nevertheless thought advisable to promulgate the 
ideas contained in it still further, and a journal was consequently started by M. 
Cochin and M. Batelle, called " L'ansi I'enfance" ("The Infant's Friend,") 
which has been published by M. Hachette (Paris) from January 1, 1835, to 
December 31, 1840, and has thoroughly treated every subject of interest concern- 
ing infant schools. For a short time it ceased to appear, because it was thought 
that sufficient knowledge of the subject had been diffused. When the whole 
work of infant schools extended to such a degree that new methods and regula- 
tions became necessary, the journal was taken up again in 1846, under the 
auspices of M. de Salvandy, May 16, 18.i4 (by an imperial decree). The asy- 
lums were placed imder the protection of her Majesty the Empress, and under 
the direction of a central committee, presided over by the Archbi.'^hop of Paris. 
In this same year a third series of the journal was commenced by M. Eugene 
Rendre, and has in its new form continued to appear to the present day. It 
has been a perfect success, and has been the means of continually throwing more 
light on the subject, and suggesting new improvements. One of these has been 
the so-called " Kindergarten,"* first introduced by Froebel, a pupil of Pestalozzi, 
which has found special favor in Germany, Holland, Belgium, and Switzerland. 
Thus, theoretically and practically much has been done to further " infant 
education," and with the constant development of science in all its various 
spheres, we can joyfully look into the future, lioping that this plant, rooted in a 
fertile ground, may constantly bear richer fruits, spread its branches over all 
parts of the world, and continue to be a blessing to humanity. 

NORMAL SCHOOL FOR TEACHERS OF INFANT ASYLUMS. 

To complete this sketch, we add some remarks on " The Normal School " 
now connected with the asylums. Till December 22, 1837, the day which gave 
official sanction to these establishments, the only means of instruction were the 
advice given by Madame Millet and the excellent manual of M. Cochin ; as for 
the rest, only a good moral reputation was required of the directresses and 
teachers. The i-oyal decree now obliged them to undergo an examination, and 
obtain a certificate of qualification, which of course implied the necessity of a 
regular course of instruction. Nothing was done, however, till the year 1847, 
when Madame Pape-Carpenticr, directress of an asylum at Mans, published her 
work, " Suggestions for the Direction of Asylums," which was very well 
received by the public and the authorities. M. de Salvandy, then Minister of 
Public Instruction, took the matter in hand, and at his suggestion Madame 
Jules Mallet and Madame Pape formed a ladies' committee. A small room was 
hired in the Hue Neuve-Saint-Paul, and arrangements made to receive five 
pupils, which number soon increased to ten. Madame Pape was the directress. 

*The Kindergarten of Froebel, was first brought to the notice of French philanthropists and 
teachers by the Baroness MarenhaltzBalow through a series of Letters and Lectures, after- 
wards published in a volume entitled Die Asbeit Labour. 



488 CHILD CULTURE IN FRANCE. 

Madame Pape-Carpentier. 

Maria Carpentier was born at La Fl&che in the department of La Sartlie 
in 1815. She showed early a decided taste for letters and the management 
of children, and m 1834 she was associated with her mother in the direction 
of a Salle d'aisle, or infant school, founded by a philanthropic society. 
After several years successful experience in this associated work, she 
became in 1842 directress of a Model Infant School at LeMans, and in 1847 
was summoned to the capital to organize a Training Class for teachers of 
this grade. In 1849 she was married to M. Pape, an officer in the Paris 
guard. Her husband died in 1858, when she was left with the education 
and support of two girls of her own, three orphan children Qf her brother, 
and a fourth of a deceased friend. She did her work nobly as teacher and 
mother— making her Training Class and Infant School a model for similar 
work elsewhere, and by her Manual of Directions for Infant School 
Teachers, her Object Lessons [Lecons de Chores), Zoologie and similar 
works for young people, making valuable additions to the pedagogical 
and juvenile literature of France. Her Manual was crowned by the 
Academjr and received the prize of three thousand francs. 

In 1855-6 she became interested through the Baroness V. Marenholtz- 
Blilow in Froebel's system, and in connection with her Infant School 
made demonstration of the methods and value of the Kindergarten. 

In 1867 at a conference of teachers held at the Sorborne during the great 
exposition of that year, under the appointment of the Minister of Public 
Instruction, she gave a course of practical pedagogy in the Kindergarten and 
Infant School System, with demonstrations by classes of little children. 
She urged all teachers and mothers "to get more space and air, and out of 
door life for their children; make them familiar with the phenomena of 
nature; transfer a portion of your school grounds into garden, that 
flowers and verdure may gladden the eyes and hearts of your children, 
and employ at once their hands and their minds." 

After twenty -five years of successful practical work as a teacher she was 
made in 1874 Inspectress General of Salles d' Aisle throughout France, 
and died in July 1878 in the midst of preparation of her own work for 
the Paris International Exhibition of that year. 

Baroness V. Marenholtz-Biilow. 
In 1835 many of the leading minds of France, representing the most 
diverse, official, educational, and literary activity, became interested in 
Froebel's doctrines of education through the efforts of the Baroness Von 
Mareuholtz Bulow, who, without letters of introduction, and without 
recourse to any sensational appliances, by the mere force of her own genius 
and the profound importance of the views she presented, obtained not 
only a hearing, but received the most satisfactory assurance of their 
convictions and adoption of the truths which she presented, from the 
minds referred to.* The fruits of her labors will be found in the modifica- 
tions of the Creche and Salles d' Aisles, and not in institutions named 
Kindcrga rtens. 

* Sec brief Memoir of Bertha V. Marenholtz-Bulow in Barnard's American Journal of 
ErtncatiDi), vol. XXXI: the correspondence which arrew out of the Baroness' lalmrs in 
different countries, it is there anuouuced by the editor, will be found in a fuller memoir 
hereafter. 



KINDEEGARTEN AND CHILD CULTURE IN BELGIUM. 



rNTBODUCTION.* 

The present system of primary instruction in Belgium grew out of 
the efforts made by voluntary associations organized after the model of 
the Society of Public Utility in Holland, after the former country came 
under the Dutch government in 1814. Besides aid given to adult and 
Sunday schools, a beginning was made in establishing ecoles gardiennes, 
as infant schools were called. In 1826, a special society was started at 
Brusselles, charged with this work. In the school law of 1842, the com- 
munal authorities were authorized to apply a portion of the public 
money api^ropriated to primary schools " to increase the establishment 
of infant schools, especially in cities and factory villages." 

In a circular addressed by the Minister of the Interior, charged with 
the supervision of public instruction, the provincial inspectors were 
directed to give special attention to " les ecoles gardiennes,'''' as the basis 
of popular education. 

In 1857, the great apostle of the kindergarten, the Baroness V. 
Marenholtz-Biilow, visited Brusselles, on invitation of the Minister Ro- 
gier, who had listened to her exposition of its principle and aim, at 
Frankfort, before the Charity Congress of that year. She here met Mrs. 
Guilliaume, who had been trained in Froebel's system at Hamburgh, 
and addressed numerous circles of ladies, school officers, and teachers, 
on the kindergarten. By public addresses and personal labors in eight 
or ten of the largest cities in Belgium, she succeeded in establishing 
model kindergartens, interesting many school officers in the work, modi- 
fying the methods of the orphan asylums, and securing the publication 
of a Manuel des Jardines d'Enfants, edited partly by herself. She also 
secured for a model kindergarten the personal services of Miss Henrietta 
Breymann, niece of Froebel (afterwards married to Mr. Schrader, and 
now (1881) at Berlin, with a kindergarten institute in charge). 

In 1860, the government directed that " instruction in the methods of 
Froebel should be introduced into the normal courses for female teach- 
ers." In the statistics for 1872, there are returns of 780 ecoles ga/rdiennes, 
of which 262 are communal, 220 penal and subject to inspection, and 
348 connected with religious asylums and associations. These institu- 
tions were under the charge of 11 instructors and 1196 female teachers 
and assistants, and numbered 78,241 pupils. 

In the regulations drawn up by the Minister of Public Instruction 
(M. Van Humbeeck) from the new school law of 1879, the local authori- 

*For Historical Development of Public InBtraction in Belgium see Barnard's National 
Systems of Public Instruction, Vol. II, Belgium, p. 369-462. 

489 



490 KINDERGAETEN AND CHILD CULTURE IN BELGIUM. 

ties must distinguish between the institutions which are parts of tlie 
public system and those wliich are mere asylums for the care of neg- 
lected infants. The principal districts must employ persons " trained in 
the theory and practice of the method of the illustrious German peda- 
gogue," and in the organization and discipline oi ecoles maternelles. 

To eSect a thorough reform in existing institutions, and create a 
higher grade of infant schools, provision is made for the training of a 
sufficient number of intelligent and devoted kindergartners. By a royal 
ordinance of March, 1880, a special diploma is issued for aspirants to 
the charge of these institutions, and special courses of instruction are 
given in the regular normal schools and the temporary institutes. 

During the year (1880), at Antwerp, Brusselles, Bruges, Charleroi, 
Ghent, Liege, Mons, Namur, and St. Josseton-Noode, 830 candidates 
were enrolled in the normal courses, and 720 obtained the certificate of 
capacity, for instructors of the ecoles gardiennes, in addition to the 
knowledge of the ordinary school branches, which require previous at- 
tendance of three years. At the end of three years of actual practice 
the holders get a full diploma for the higher position of principal. 

The programme of instruction embraces: 1. Froebel and his system; 
2. Story-telling, conversation on real objects and pictures, narrative, sim- 
ple poetry; 3. Singing; 4. Simple gymnastics and plays; 5. Gardening. 

The ecole maternelle embraces childi"en from three to six years of age, 
and excludes reading and writing. After the age of six, attention is 
given to reading and penmanship, preparatory to the lower division of 
the public primary school. It is enjoined on the directors to continue 
certain of Froebel's exercises, and to make the transition from the kin- 
dergarten to the school without any violent break. The formation of a 
transition class is recommended by the minister. 

The Belgian League (Ligue Beige de L'enssignement)^ organized in 
1866, has taken an active interest, both by its individual members and 
its associated efforts, to strengthen the foundation of all popular educa- 
tion by improving the earliest stages of child-culture in the homes of 
the poor, and by substituting the kindergarten for the ordinary infant 
school and child's asylum. Under its auspices the Model School in 
Brusselles was instituted to secure the best moral, mental and physical 
training for its pupils. 

KINDERGAETEN IN HOLLAND. 

From Belgium, in the summer of 1856, the Baroness V. Marenholtz 
visited Holland, and was successful in instituting Kindergartens in 
Amsterdam, the Hague, Rotterdam, and Gueldern, and in interesting 
the Minister of Public Instruction, and several Inspectors of Elementary 
Schools, and Directors of Children's Asylums, in Froebel's System. 



PUBLIC KINDERGARTENS IN BRUSSELS. 

REPORT OF M. BULS TO CITY AUTHORITIES ON THEIR ORGAKIZATION. 



AIMS AND ORGANIZATION. 

The Kindergarten is of prime importance in tlie organization of public 
instruction in cities liaving a large working population, where the children 
have not proper care at home, and where proper care is well-nigh impos- 
sible to many families, from the ignorance or the loss or the intemperance 
of one or both parents, and the early exposure of the children to moral de- 
terioration and vagabondage in the streets. 

The aim of the Kindergarten is to give to all children, and particularly 
to those who are neglected and exposed, early physical and moral develop- 
ment — and to protect them from forming bad habits in respect to language, 
manners, and conduct. To accomplish these results the Kindergarten 
must be organized and conducted on the Froebel method — a method in which 
the senses, the intelligence, and the necessary activity of children are 
trained in a rational way pointed out by wise observation and experience 
of child nature. This method belongs primarily to a well-regulated home, 
and should be exercised by the mother in accordance with the motherly 
instinct properly enlightened. Its place is more like a home with its 
liberty of locomotion and occupation than a school with its necessary 
restraints. Its pupils are not so much instructed, as their faculties and 
intelligence are developed by activity and observation in pure air and 
favorable surroundings. 

By a graduated series of plays, exercises, occupations, and moral and 
instructive talks, children are led to see correctly, to listen intelligently, to 
acquire correct notions, to be interested in everything that surrounds 
them; they are led to observe, to express themselves clearly, to develop 
their inventive and constructive faculties; and great success is met with in 
inculcating the need and habits of order and cleanliness, a taste for labor 
and love of goodness, which form the basis of all aesthetic and moral edu- 
cation. 

The things with which the children in a Kindergarten are occupied are 
not to be chosen for their value as knowledge, but as the means they fur- 
nish for leading them to observe, to think, and to express their ideas. 

They are to be drawn out of the intellectual somnolence produced by 
ignorance, care always being taken to avoid exciting them by artificial 
means. It is not by tickling a child that it is made to laugh. Joy, like 
curiosity, must be the result of the natural expansion of the being, content 
to live and attracted by the novelty of eternal things. 

The Kindergartner will endeavor to combat the natural selfishness of the 
child by giving it an opportunity to be kind and amiable to its companions; 
she will at the same time transform the brutal ways the child often brings 



492 PUBLIC KINDERGARTENS IN BRUSSELS. 

from home or the street, into affable and polite manners. The external 
arrangements of the Kindergarten should be such that in good weather the 
greater part of the day can be passed in the open air; for what must be 
secured to the child above all things is robust health, to enable it to resist 
the deleterious influences it will be subjected to at home and in the street. 

To this first condition must be added scrupulous neatness ; the parents 
must be rigorously required to change their children's linen at least twice 
during the week. 

Every morning, the first hour must be set apart for the duties of cleanli- 
ness, and the children must not be sent home at night till the guardians have 
verified the fact that their garments are in good condition and their bodies 
perfectly clean; the Kindergartners must be aided in these cases by the 
waiting-maids, and bathing facilities must be annexed to every Kinder- 
garten. 

In order that the primary school shall be furnished by the Kindergartens 
with well-prepared children, the Kindergartners must be penetrated with 
the spirit of Froebel's method, and no hybrid compromise must be made 
between the Kindergarten and the school originally so called. 

But the intelligent application of this method supposes a certain culture 
of mind ; it is not, then, too much to demand of the Kindergartners that 
they shall be furnished with a diploma of primary instruction, and that 
they shall be recognized as having profited by a normal course of the 
Froebel method. 

The Kindergartens must not contain too many children, and they must 
be disseminated throughout the city, in order that the children may not 
have too long a walk to take. 

Accommodations Necessary. 

The accommodations necessary for a Kindergarten are as follows: 

1. Three rooms, each capable of containing fifty pupils. 2. A covered 
yard. 3. A play-ground. 4. A garden divided into small gardens. 
5. A small room furnished with wash-stands and towels. 6. Privies 
with suitable vessels. 7. A closet in which the materials for play and 
work can be locked up. 8. An apartment for the Kindergartners which 
will at the same time answer for the meetings of committees. 9. An 
office for the superintending Kindergartner. 10. A lodging for the janitor. 

The furniture of each class will consist of tables at which the children 
shall sit on seats with backs, proportioned to their stature; and a few 
couches for children who fall asleep. 

A table and chair for the Kindergartner, also a cabinet to contain the 
ordinary material used in the Froebel method. 

The hall should be decorated with pictures and various objects which the 
committee will endeavor to procure gratuitously for each Kindergarten. 

The curiosity of the children of the poor should be excited by the sight 
of the new objects they will see in the Kindergarten, as that of the children 
of the rich who see in their own houses a thousand objects calculated to 
provoke questioning. 

The children should also be incited to work for the decoration of their 



PUBLIC KINDERGAKTENS IN CKUSSELS. 493 

balls; their little productions should be hung upon the walls; they will 
thus learn that nothing can be obtained without exertion, and that gratifi- 
cation nuist always be attained by some degree of labor. 

The elder children should be taught to clean their hall, their benches, 
arid their tables themselves; they should every day arrange the things that 
have been used in the cabinet, in order to practice neatness and order. 

The discipline of the Kindergarten should be humane but not effemi- 
nate; the children must be taught to take care of themselves, to bear the 
inconveniences of their giddiness and carelessness, to clean whatever they 
soil, to wait upon themselves; they must be led by a gentle but firm hand. 

The children of the upper division should be led to do everything they 
can to assist those in the lower divisions, in order to acquire those senti- 
ments of solidarity and familiarity which should unite all members of the 
same community. They will then feel the satisfaction of being useful, so 
pleasant to all children; they will taste the happiness of devoting themselves 
to those weaker than themselves, a sentiment which lies at the foundation 
of the great law of charity and love, to which is attributed the superiority 
of our modern society over any ancient civilization. 

With the system of small schools, it will no longer be necessary to place 
a directress at the head of each Kindergarten; the principal Kindergartner 
will receive an indemnity for filling the office of chief Kindergartner; she 
will watch over the material order of the establishment, maintain disci- 
pline among the teaching corps, and direct the distribution of time. 

General Inspection. 

The pedagogic direction will be confided to an inspectress; her mission 
will be to watch over the progress of the occupations, to observe the pro- 
gramme and proper application of Froebel's method, and control the order 
and the neatness and preservation of the material. At intervals determined 
by the school authority, the inspectress will assemble the teaching force 
for conference, or give model talks or typical exercises, and thus maintain 
a constant spirit of progi'ess and prevent them from ever falling into a 
mechanical teaching or a mere routine. 

Committee for each Kindergarten. 

For the special committees of each Kindergarten we should like to 
depend upon the volunteer cooperation of the ladies of Brussels. "What 
better way can they find to employ their benevolence, their native charity, 
than to watch over the education of the poor children? How often might 
they be able to give useful counsels to the mothers, and ameliorate secret 
sufferings! They should be our co-laborers in the great civilizing work 
that we are undertaking; they especially have it in their power to be the 
bond of union between the rich and the poor, the ignorant and the culti- 
vated. Our country is happily free from that caste hatred which so cruelly 
divides rich and poor in some lands; may all the women whom fortune 
has favored understand how much the maintenance of this favorable con- 
dition depends upon their charity and their devotion to the interests of tho 
people 1 



494 PUBLIC KINDERGARTENS IN BRUSSELS. 

Regtilations. 
Article I. The object of the kindergarten is to develop harmoniously 
the moral and intellectual faculties and physical forces of children. 
This result may be obtained by the application of Froebel's Method. 

II. The distribution of time and of the pedagogic instruction are 
decreed by the Board (College of Bourgmestre and Echevins.) 

Conditions of Admission. 

III. The parents who desire to place a child in a kindergarten must 
produce first, a declaration from the police indicating the child's age, the 
domicile and profession of the parents: Second. The certificate of vacci- 
nation. 

IV. The attendance is without cost to the child that belongs to the 
commune between three and seven years of age, and where the parents 
request it. 

V. Children who breakfast at the kindergarten must be furnished with 
a basket for their food and a goblet. 

Hours of Attendance. 

VI. The kindergartens are open from eight in the morning until four 
in the afternoon. The children can be dismissed from half past eleven 
till half past one. The children who breakfast at the kindergarten are 
placed under the care of the assistants and waiting maids. 

VII. The children are received at any hour at which they present 
themselves. 

VIII. The children who are not taken away by their parents at the 
closing hour of the kindergarten will be in the care of one of the mis- 
tresses or confided to some safe person to be taken home. They will no 
longer be admitted, if the parents after being duly notified, fall habitually 
into the same negligence. 

The exclusion, however, can only be pronounced by the Board. 

IX. The vacation days are, Sundays; the 1st of November; 15th of 
November; 25th of December: 1st of January. 

]Mardi-Gras in the afternoon, Easter Monday. Monday afternoon of the 
kermesse of Brussels. 

X. The epoch and duration of the long vacations are as follows : 
Eight days before Easter. The month of August. 

The Inspectress. 

XI. The pedagogic direction of the kindergartens is confided to an 
inspectress. 

XII. The inspectress watches over the execution of the programme 
decreed by the Communal Administration, she directs its application by 
conforming strictly to the principles of Froebel's Method such as they are 
determined by the instructions of the Board. Her inspection extends also 
to the material part of the institute. 

The inspectress summons the teaching force to conference at regular 
epochs decreed by the minister of publique instruction. 

XIII. A detailed table of the employment of time will be drawn up 
by the inspectress in conformity to the general table decreed by the Board 
and posted in all the divisions of the kindergarten. 

XIV. The chief kindergartner of each kindergarten is subordinate to 
the inspectress and will follow her direction at all points. 

XV. Every year the inspectress makes a report to the Board upon the 
progress of the kindergartens and the teaching force. 

7%e Chief Kindergartner. 

XVI. The chief kindergartner is charged with the general superintend- 
ence of the kindergarten. She sees that vigorous order and neatness reign 
in the establishment. She fills the function of a kindergartner in one of 
the divisions. 

XVII. The chief -kindergartner keeps the following books: 

1. Register of Orders in which she transcribes all the communications 
of the Board of Education. 



PUBLIC KINDERGARTENS IN BRQSSELS. 495 

a. Register in which she inscribes : 

a. The family and first name of all the children. 

b. The date and place of their birth. 

c. Name of the practitioner to the certificate of vaccination. 

d. The name and profession of the parents or guardians. 

e. The domicile of the latter. 
/. A column of observations. 

3. Register of presence in which the kindergartners place their signa- 
tures every day when they arrive at the establishment. This register 
is countersigned by the chief as soon as the entrance bell has rung. 

4. An inventory register of the material of the school. 

5. A family register in which the chief-kindergartner inscribes every 
day the quantities and prices of provisions received. 

XVIII. In the three first days of every month, the chief-kindergartner 
makes known to the Chairman the changes in her school during the pre- 
ceding month, indicating the number of vacant seats. 

XIX. She sends every month to the council the bulletin that mentions 
the conduct and absences of the kindergartners under her jurisdiction. 

XX. On the 1st of August of each year she will draw up a report 
upon her management, and upon the attendance of the pupils, and men- 
tions any facts in which the Communal Administration may have any inter- 
est. On the 1st of July she will indicate the repairs or changes desirable in 
the premises during the vacation. 

XXI. She cannot absent herself without being authorized by the city 
authorities. She must be the first to present herself and the last to leave 
the establishment she directs. 

XXII. The chief-kindergartner may, in case of urgency, grant a holi- 
day to a member of her teaching corps, but she must immediately inform 
the bureau of public instruction. 

T7ie Personal Service. 
The personal service of the kindergarten is composed of, first, a chief- 
kindergartner; second, of kindergartners; third, assistants; fourth, wait- 
ing maids. 

XXIII. No applicant will be admitted into the kindergartens as kin- 
dergartner if she is not furnished with a diploma of primary instruc- 
tion, and a certificate testifying that she has profitably pursued a course of 
kindergarten training. 

The primary teachers who are pursuing the normal course of Froebelian 
pedagogy can be admitted as assistants. 

XXIV. The teachers must be found in the kindergarten fifteen minutes 
before the time of opening the classes. 

The assistants and waiting maids must be present at the hour indicated 
by the chief-kindergartner. 

XXV. The teachers are forbidden: — 

To absent themselves without the authorization of the public council. 
To occupy themselves with any other work than that prescribed. 
To make the children repeat any other songs or to distribute to them any 
other pictures than those approved by the council. 
To receive from the parents any description of presents. 

XXVI. The kindergartners are expected to observe four times a day 
the degrees of heat and mark them upon the thermometric lists; every 
week they will take the average and remit the list duly signed to the chief- 
kindergartner, who will communicate it to the bureau of health. 

XXVII. The waiting woman receives from the chief-kindergartner or 
from the kindergartner or assistant who may take her place during ab- 
sence, all the orders that concern her duty for the day. She owes respect 
and obedience to them all. 

XXVIIT. She is charged, with the assistants, with all the material 
duties, with the neatness of the establishment, and of the children, and is 
to lend herself to all accidental necessities which may occur. 

XXIX. Before and after school hours, she must open the windows to 
air the rooms, and afterwards carefully close them. 

XXX. She nuist kindle the fires an hour before the arrival of the 
children and keep them in order. 



496 PUBLIC KINDERGARTENS IN BRUSSELS. 

Care of the CJiildren. 

XXXI. The children, before presenting themselves at the establish- 
ment must be washed and combed, and furnished with a pocket-handker- 
chief; they must besides, on Monday and Thursdays, have on clean linen. 

XXXII. Every day, before beginning school, the kindergartners must 
ask to see the pocket-handkerchiefs ; they must see that the stockings are 
pulled up, the shoes tied and blackened. If they see any dirty children, 
they must see that they are washed by the waiting-maids. The good con- 
dition of the children must be the constant object of their attention. A 
quarter of an hour before dismissal, the kindergartners will pass in review 
all the children, that they may be sent home clean to their parents. 

XXXIII. If after repeated warnings from the chief kindergartner, the 
parents continue to keep their children in a constant uncleanly condition, 
the chief kindergartners may request the Board to inflict a warning upon 
the parents. If this is inefficacious, the Board must exclude the child. 

XXXIV. Every day to each child who dines at the kindergarten sub- 
stantial soup is given. The rest of the food is brought by the children. 

XXXV. The children are to take their repast seated in good order. 
They must restore to their baskets what is left from their meal. 

XXXVI. The assistants watch all that passes during the repast. They 
take turns as observers and make their repasts also witli the children. 

XXXVII. It is formally forbidden to strike the children. They must 
always be reprimanded gently. 

The following punishments are the only ones that can be inflicted in 
cases of absolute necessity, and never continued beyond one exercise; 
To seat them aside, but always in view of the teachers. 
To forbid them to join in the exercises. 

Committee on Instruction. 

XXXVIII. For each kindergarten a special committee is formed to be 
called eomite scolaire. 

XXXIX. The mission of this committee is to aid the communal admin- 
istration in diffusing the benefits of this instruction as far as possible, viz: 

1. To observe the exercises and to point out to the communal admin- 
istration whatever may be for the interest of the law, the improvement of 
the teaching and the position of the kindergartners. 

2. To find children who do not attend the kindergartens; to use their 
influence with the parents to induce them to ask admittance for them ; to 
have an understanding upon this subject with the committees of charities. 

3. To aim at introducing the care and discipline practised in the kin- 
dergartens into the families of the children. 

XL. Each special committee will consist of six members chosen by the 
Common Council, the President not included. 

They are nominated for four years, and half of them renewed every two 
years accordingly to the order indicated by the drawing of the lots. 

The members of the special committee of a school shall be chosen if 
possible from among the persons being in the vicinity of said school. 

XLI. The alderman of public instruction presides by right over each 
special committee; he is assisted in this function by a communal counseller 
or by a member of the committee, delegated specially by the Board. 

In case of a division in the deliberations, the vote of the President will 
turn the scale, but mention must be made of it in the report. 

The Secretary of the committee is chosen annually. 

XLII. The Board decrees the regulations of the internal order and 
service of the special committees. 

The special committee meets once a month. 

XLIII. It delegates one or several of its members to assist in the exer- 
cises, in conformity with the regulation of internal order. 

XLIV. Each committee reports to the communal administration before 
the end of the school year, upon the situatian of the school, presenting in 
it its wishes and advice in respect to the kindergartens. These reports are 
submitted to the City Council at the time of the vote for the budget. 



INTUITION AND INTUITIVE METHODS. 

BY A. SLUTS. 

Director of the Model School, Brussels. 



QUESTIONS PROPOUNDED BY THE BRUSSELS CONGRESS. 

Has experience discovered any rocks to be avoided in the use of intuitive methods? 

What is the intuitive method ? 

What are the sciences of observation to be taught ? 

Is it best in primary schools to co-ordinate scientific notions and group them under 
the name of the science to which they belong, or to place them under the general 
denomination of object lessons ? 

LiTTRE defines intuition to be : " sudden, spontaneous, indubitable 
knowledge, like that which the sight gives us of light and sensuous 
forms, and consequently independent of all demonstration." 

In Kant's system, intuition is : " the particular representation of an 
object formed in the mind by sensation." 

Larousse attributes the same signification to the word ; " it applies," 
he says, " to every clear and immediate perception ; and we call the 
faculties to which we owe perceptions offering this characteristic, intui- 
tive faculties." " These are distinguished from reflective faculties, 
which, needing the support of knowledge before acquired, or of hypo- 
thetical data, only arrive indirectly at their end." 

" In 1817," says M. Buisson, " the word intuition made its entrance 
into the official teaching at the Sorbonne with all the eclat of Mr.. 
Cousin's word." 

No French dictionary gives the definition of this term in its peda- 
gogic acceptation. 

The Intuitive Method. 

The expression intuitive teaching is the equivalent of what the Ger- 
mans call Anschauungsunterricht, which is sometimes translated teaching 
b'j inspection or the sight. These expressions are improper, for the intui- 
tion of things is acquired by the other senses as well as by the sight. 

Intuitive teaching is that teaching Vi hich proceeds in conformity with 
the laws of the development of human intelligence. It consists in 
making the child observe things directly by the senses, in teaching 
him natui-al history in nature itself, physics with the necessary instru- 
ments, chemistry in the laboratory, industry in workshops and manu- 
factories. In intuitive teaching the perceptions and the words that 
express them are furnished, and then the mind is exercised in judging 
and reasoning upon the exact notions acquired by observation. It is 
the opposite of dogmatic and purely literary teaching, which considers 
language as the principal factor of intellectual development, and which 
sets forth notions of things under the form of verbal explanations, defi- 
nitions, rules, laws, formulas, descriptions, reasonings, etc., without 



493 INTUITION AND INTUITIVE METHODS. 

having beforehand prepared the understanding for comprehending 
them by exercises of direct observation, or by experiments. 

The idea of making observation and experiment the basis of the 
study of nature comes from Bacon, vyho was the precursor of a radical 
revolution in science, in teaching and in philosophy. At that epoch 
what was called science was not worthy of the name. The most absurd 
things were taught by the dogmatic powei"s, which consisted in affirm- 
ing without proof, without demonstration, without serious discussion. 
Philosophy, confounded with theology, was but a science of words and 
empty reasonings. Nature was unknown, scholasticism having hidden 
it under a thick veil of errors, prejudices and superstitions. 

No one thought of opening his eyes to observe the most simple 
facts and phenomena, and man walked about like a blind man in the 
midst of nature, of which he understood nothing. The smallest phe- 
nomena frightened him ; he attributed them to occult and supernatural 
causes, which led him into the strangest aberrations. 

As early as the 13th century Roger Bacon had attempted to draw the 
attention of his contemporaries to nature, but his voice was not listened 
to, and he passed for a sorcerer. People still continued for ages to live 
outside of realities, to nourish their minds exclusively upon the reading 
of Greek and Latin books, to carry on science according to Aristotle, 
and to consider the Magister dixit as the supreme reason of all things. 

It was the Chancellor Francis Bacon who attempted in the 16th cen- 
tury completely to modify ideas on the subject of method. " It is not 
in the books of the ancients," he said, " that we are to study stones, 
plants and animals, it is in nature herself, which alone can redress 
errors and enrich us with new knowledge." These words were fertile 
in important results. They were the death sentence of the old scho- 
lasticisms. Science was at last to free itself from its leading strings. 
The illustrious pedagogue, John Amos Comenius, introduced the prin- 
ciple of observation or intuition into his general plan of study. 
" During the first six years," said he, " put into the child the foun- 
dation of all knowledge necessary to life. In nature show him stones, 
plants, animals, and teach him to make use of his limbs (natural his- 
tory, physics) ; to distinguish colors (optics') ; and sounds (acoustics) ; 
to contemplate the stars (astronomy) ; he will observe his cradle, the 
room he lives in, the house, the neighborhood, the roads, the fields (ge- 
ography) ; make him attentive to the succession of day and night, to 
the seasons, to the divisions of time, the hours, weeks, months, festival 
days (chronology) ; let him learn the administration of the house (poli- 
tics) ; let him familiarize himself with the first notions of calculation, 
sales and purchases (commerce) ; the dimensions of bodies, their lines, 
surfaces, solids (^geometry) ; he will hear singing, and his voice will learn 
to reproduce sounds and musical phrases (singing, music) ; he will sur- 
vey the formation and development of his mother-tongue (grammar) ; 
he will exerjcise himself in expressing his thoughts and sentiments by 



INTUITION AND INTUITIVE METHODS. 499 

gestures and the inflexions of the voice (rhetoric). By the.se means the ma- 
ternal school will develop the germs of all the sciences and all the arts." 

Comenius was the true creator of intuitive teaching. The following 
principles, taken from his works, characterize this method: "It is a 
fundamental error to begin teaching with language and to end it with 
things, mr.thematics, natural history, etc., for things are the substance, 
the body ; and words are accident and dress. These two parts of 
knowledge are to be united, but it is necessary to begin with tilings 
which are the object of thought and speech. 

" We should at first exercise the senses {perception') ; then the mem- 
ory, then the intelligence, then the judgment (reasoning) ; for science 
begins by observation ; the impressions received are then engraven on 
the memory and imagination ; intelligence then takes possession of 
the notions collected in the memory, and draws from them general 
ideas ; at last draws conclusions from things sufBciently well known, 
and co-ordinated by the intellect. 

" It is not the shadow of things that makes an impression upon the 
senses and imagination, but the things themselves. It is, therefore, by 
a real intuition that teaching should be begun, and not by a verbal 
description of things." 

All the pedagogues since Comenius, and almost all the philosopliers 
who have written upon education, have demonstrated that it is neces- 
sary to begin it by that of the senses, and have protested against the 
abuse of verbalism and abstraction in early instruction. In France, 
Montaigne, Rabelais, J. J. Rousseau and many others, eloquently de- 
fended these ideas. Basedow, Francke, Locke, Pestalozzi, Friibel 
based their systems of education upon this principle of observation by 
the senses. 

Pestalozzi, although he understood the capital importance of intuition, 
and defined intuitive teaching as that in which the study of things and 
that of words are always closely united, yet did not succeed, in spite 
of his patient efforts, in a happy application of his theories. Most of his 
lessons were only mechanical repetitions of words and phrases which 
the instructor dictated in some way, and the pupils repeated after him. 

The continuers of Pestalozzi's system. Von Tiirk, Grassmann, 
Ilarnisch, have recourse to intuitive teaching in order to arrive at the 
knowledge of language, in order to succeed in expressing correct 
thoughts correctly. Graser assigns to intuitive teaching a more elevated 
and more general aim. He considers it an instruction from which all 
branches ramify. This is the thought of Comenius. 

Diesterweg and Denzel, initiated into the experimental psychology 
of Beneke, also made intuitive teaching the foundation of instruction in 
all branches, bu^ they also attribute to it great value as a means of 
development of the intellectual faculties. This is the opinion which 
is coming to prevail more and more at the present day in Germany. 

With these pedagogues, the object which is subjected to the obser- 



SOO ^ INTUITION AND INTUITIVE METHODS. 

vation of tlie child is an important educative factor; they think it is to 
be observed less with the aim of furnishing an item of positive knowl- 
edge than with that of exercising the senses, the attention, the spirit 
of observation, and language. They also guard against that pretended 
iiituitive instruction which consists in endless digressions without end 
upon the pointer, pen liaudle, pencil, slate, etc. — which have been so 
much abused under the name of object lessons, and which have dis- 
credited intuitive teaching. 

Frobel brought the ihouglit of Comenius and Pestalozzi to comple- 
tion. Wliile Comenius stopped in his application of it to show graphic 
representations (^orbis jiictus) of the objects to be observed instead of 
taking the objects themseves, and wliile Pestalozzi contented himself 
with attracting the attention of the children to the things found in 
the school-room, and with making them repeat his phrases about them, 
Frobel introduced into his school the spirit of action. In his system 
the child observes and gives his own account of his observations, and 
moreover, he imitates, works, combines, creates. The school is no 
longer some place where a master teaches ex cathedra to pupils who are 
expected to believe him and repeat his phrases. It is a medium in 
which the child blossoms out freely accoi'ding to the laws of his nature; 
the notions he acquires by observation are immediately utilized by 
their application in exercises or games that develop the creative facul- 
ties. He learns to become acquainted with things, to draw them, to 
represent them, to construct them, and he is incessantly occupied in 
finding new combinations and applications of them. 

This is the way in which intuition is to be understood. It is not a 
special branch of the programme, it is a principle which embraces the 
whole teaching. Intuitive teaching may be defined as that which de- 
velops all the faculties by employing them in a useful manner, and 
which proceeds by means of exercises which are provocative of sensa- 
tions and excite spontaneity and keep it awake. 

Intuitive teaching tends consequently : 1. To exercise the faculties of 
the child with the aim of developing them. 2. To furnish exact notions 
upon the different sciences and to give aptitude in utilizing them. 3. 
To make known perfectly the signification of terms, by applying them 
to the ideas furnished by sensation or created by reflection bearing 
upon the perceptions acquired. 

Of these three important points of view, the first should predominate. 
Indeed the brain of the child is not an empty tablet, or a receptacle to 
be filled vwth words, notions, ideas which the educator introduces into 
it in fragments. The child, on the contrary, is a thinking and acting 
being, endowed with an initiative, possessing as germs the active facul- 
ties which are to be awakened, excited, developed, in order that they 
may arrive at their complete blossoming ; he is destined to become a 
free man, master of himself and responsible for his acts, capable of 
perfecting himself. 



INTUITION AND INTUITIVE METHODS. 501 

The most complex acts of intelligence have their point of departure 
in sensation. Ideas present themselves to the mind of the little child 
under the intuitive foi'm, and are entirely independent of the words 
which express them. 

These ideas are at first vague, floating; they take consistence and 
become an integral part of the memory only by a series of strong sen- 
sations, which produce more and more profound impressions. The 
words by which we designate them and which the mother patiently 
endeavors to make the child retain and repeat, end by awakening in 
him, when they strike his ear, the idea which they represent, even a 
long time before he knows how to pronounce them. By degrees he 
forms his vocabulary and he often creates words for which he after- 
wards substitutes those of ordinary language. Seeing a dog which is 
barking, the child imitates his cry and " wow wow " becomes the name 
of the animal. He repeats it every time he sees a dog, and even when 
his attention is drawn to a sketch or an engraving that represents one. 
Mothers' Intuitive Method. 

The mother naturally follows the processes of intuitive teaching in the 
first education she gives to her child. She shows him objects, makes 
him listen to sounds, inhale odors, touch and handle solid bodies, ob- 
serve and execute different acts, taste different substances, and at the 
same time tells him words and makes him repeat them which represent 
the ideas that arise from these sensations. The child thus learns his 
substantives, adjectives, verbs, etc., and every word with which his 
memory is enriched remains intimately associated with a clear and ex- 
act notion. 

Sensation then is the natural mode of the formation of ideas. 
Words are only the representative signs of ideas ; as Comenius said, 
they are only the accident, the dress, while things are the substance, 
the body. The fact that in all languages abstract conceptions are repre- 
sented by words borrowed from the vocabulary of concrete things, 
proves that sensation is the origin of all our knowledge. It is only 
quite late that the child attains to the comprehension of abstractions, 
relations, scientific or moral laws. He seizes the general or abstract 
sense of words, only after having attached a concrete sense to them. 
The passage from the concrete to the abstract is not made hastily. 
The mind must be long prepared for it, and it is only so prepared when 
it possesses a certain power acquired by the faculties, by means of a 
gradual intuitive teaching. It is impossible, for instance, to furnish exact, 
mathematical notions of the terms : line, circle, cylinder, by the aid of 
a definition even carefully explained. It is first necessary to attract 
the attention of the child to the material things which show these 
forms, to show him the edges of a toy and call them lines, to put a 
cylinder before his eyes and call it by that name, to make him observe 
that its basis is a plane, and that the line that limits it is everywhere 
at an equal distance from the center, etc-. The notion will be so much the 



502 INTUITION AND INTUITIVE METHODS. 

more clear if the child has the opportunity to observe many geometric 
figures, and has constructed a great number, and imagined different 
ways of combining them. By degrees he will create abstract notions 
for himself and mathematical concepts, and then he will understand 
the definitions of them and find them for himself. 

All the other conceptions of abstract nature such as those expressed 
by the words right, goodness, duty, justice, law, etc., could not be under- 
stood by children by the aid of a definition or a verbal description. 
But these words must not be banished from their vocabulary. By 
using them in a concrete sense according to the opportunities that 
present themselves during school life, their meaning will be seized. 
When the notion is once acquired, it may be fixed by a definition. 

The culture of the faculties having its point of departure in sensa- 
tion, we must attach great importance to the perfecting of the senses 
considered as primitive faculties. The sight is generally the only sense 
we exercise. We thus deprive ourselves of numerous means of intel- 
lectual development which are the source of many usable sensations. 
Hearing, smell, taste, touch can alone furnish us with exact and clear 
notions of a great number of terms of common parlance. M. Const. 
Delhez, whom death swept away at the very moment wlien success was 
about to crown his work, had imagined a gymnastics of the senses which 
agrees perfectly with the first stage of primary teaching. In this sys- 
tem the senses and consequently the intelligence are exercised by mak- 
ing children observe colors, and their shades, the forms and relations 
of position of objects, sizes, sounds, tones and qualities of tones, tem- 
peratures, weights, savors, odors, etc. This series of exercises is a first 
intuitive teaching which furnishes innumerable fundamental notions and 
the exact meaning of the words which represent them. 
Subjects of Intuitive Instruction. 
All the sciences of observation lend themselves to intuitive teaching. 
At first sight it seems impossible to teach them in a primary school be- 
cause it is supposed that the intelligence of the children is not suffi- 
ciently developed to comprehend them. There is reason in this view, 
if science has been looked at as it is conceived in the higher teaching 
and explained in the books. The science which proceeds by the way 
of' deduction, and which is supported upon hypotheses, definitions, 
laws, and abstractions is not to be approached in the primary school. 
Far from being of any use for the culture of the intelligence, it clogs 
the faculty of observation, and degenerates fatally into a science of 
words. To begin with abstract notions is intuitive teaching backwards. 
The order to be followed in the primary teaching of these sciences 
is that indicated by the historical development of each one of them. 
They have gradually arranged themselves. The attentive observation 
of things and phenomena has been the point of departure of true 
science. Premature theories and hypotheses have been completely 
overturned in proportion as observations have become more complete 



INTUITION AND INTUITIVE METHODS. 503 

and have been made with more care. Thus it is by observation that 
we must proceed in the primary school. 

We nmst not seek to accumulate numerous notions in the brain, nor 
wear out the attention of the child by going into trifles and minutice 
which are not interesting. It is best, on the contrary, to choose in the 
domain of each science the notions which may most easily lend them- 
selves to the observation, and give opportunity for application which 
may exercise the' initiative, — the spirit of invention. 

By concentrating the attention upon fundamental scientific notions 
in a tangible form, presented in all their brilliancy by interesting experi- 
ments, we prepare the understanding for comprehending science. 
Zoology — Botany — Mineralogy. 

Natural history — animal, vegetable and mineral — offers the most sim- 
ple exercises which can be suitable for beginners. It is purely descrip- 
tive. The principle of intuition is easily applied to it, the programme 
comprises the knowledge of a series of types put before the eyes of 
the pupils and studied by way of analysis and comparison. 

As much as possible, it is necessary to take living types of animals 
and vegetables, and have recourse to artificial representations by 
pictures only when it is impossible to do otherwise ; the difficulty of 
doing it is not insurmountable. An extensive series of animals and 
vegetables can usually be seen in the locality and its environs wherever 
a school is situated ; school excursions for this part of the programme 
offer the best means of furnishing intuitive notions. It is very impoi'- 
tant constantly to attract the attention of children to the gradual trans- 
formations of organisms (as in the caterpillar) and which they will see 
to be a vast series, going by a train of modifications from the most 
simple existence, the cell, up to the most complex ones. The mind is 
thus prepared for the conception of modern science and put on its 
guard against the prejudices which encumber and disturb the rational 
study of natural history. 

The best means to ensure that this teaching shall produce the greatest 
results consists in exercising the children in making collections them- 
selves during their excursions. 

This habit of making collections of objects to be studied obliges the 
child to pay attention to the special characteristics of objects, to re- 
mark their resemblances and their differences ; it thus gives not only 
numerous sensations which help the ideas gained to be more profoundly 
understood, but it prepares him to understand classification. 

Geography — Astronomy — Geology. 

Geography, astronomy and geology are also concrete sciences whose 
study in the primary school is possible by the intuitive process, and 
which opens the mind to the most elevated conceptions. 

The point of departure of the teaching of geography is the notion of 
orientation furnished by observation of the apparent motion of the sun 



504 INTUITION AND INTUITIVE METHODS. 

and the position of the polar star, and the use of the compass. The 
sio-ht of the horizon, some experiments that will reproduce the phe- 
nomena observed which have for their cause the sphericity of the earth, 
lead to this last notion as well as to that of the isolation of our planet 
in space. 

The meridians which are at first shown as real lines traced upon the 
ground in the direction of the shadow of a vertical line at noon, after- 
wards become the imaginary circles whose notion and utility the child 
seizes. 

The map is made perfectly intelligible if in the beginning the child 
is made to draw a map of the school-room, then that of the school- 
house, afterwards adding the surrounding streets. The common names 
of the vocabulary of geography are learned by the sight of the things 
they designate, and which are met with in the school excursions or im- 
agined by plastic or graphic constructions. At last real journeys into 
the country, during which the pupils consult the map, fictitious journeys 
upon the globe, the dramatic recital of great discoveries made in the 
presence of pictures representing picturesque views of striking regions 
where it is impossible to take the pupils, are so many means of making 
the teaching of geography intuitive. 

The observation of the sun's apparent motion and of the polar star 
is also the point of departure for the elementary instruction in astron- 
omy, which opens a vast and wonderful field to the attention of chil- 
dren. Few sciences can rival this in the profound influence exercised 
upon the imagination. How many men there are, even well-informed, 
who never raise their eyes toward that starry vault which was the first 
field of observation to primitive nations ! This is because neither pri- 
mary instruction nor secondary instruction prepare the mind for the 
study of it. We are satisfied with reciting a manual affirming facts 
and phenomena which neither the professor who teaches, the pupil 
who listens and repeats, nor often even the author who wrote the book, 
have observed with their own eyes ! The memory is thus burdened 
with a knowledge of words which has no salutary action upon the in- 
telligence. The primary school can, however, throw out landmarks for 
this study. It is sufficient sometimes to collect pupils in an evening, 
make them observe the starry heavens, teach them to know a few con- 
stellations at sight, to distinguish the milky way and a few planets, 
and let them add some simple experiments by which they may verify 
the apparent and real movements of the stars. It might be possible to 
create a very elementary observatory in every private school at very 
little expense. This is an important question which deserves atten- 
tion.* But without its being necessary to have recourse to special in- 
struments, there are many things which can be made the subject of 
observation, and which constitute the basis of an elementary teaching 



*A very good spy-glass, even an opera-glass, •will show tlie moons of Jupiter and 
and the rings of Saturn. 



INTUITION AND INTUITIVE METHODS. 505 

of astronomy. The words : sun, planet, satellite, milky way, star, 
comet, eclipse, and so many others which have entered into common 
parlance, are to many minds vague terms to which are attached only 
incomplete or false notions. These would convey their true meaning 
if in the primary school for six or seven years a few observations of 
the kind just rapidly sketched could be carefully made. The history 
of astronomical science, properly presented, would be of use to point 
out the errors, the prejudices and supei'stitions which the, spectacle of 
the heavens has inspired in man for the want of correct ideas. 

As M. Tempels says : " In the upper classes astronomy leads tie 
teacher to speak of infinity, of the genius of man which has ever been 
engaged in sounding its depths, of the emotions inspired by this study, 
of the care with which it must be guarded from the pride of science as 
well as from the terror of ignorance. Considerations of this nature, 
even measured by the intelligence of a child, but made with simplicity 
and luminously, open large horizons and dispose minds for philosophic 
meditations, for the want of which the mind remains narrow and un- 
progressive." 

Geologic phenomena offer material for considerations of the same 
kind. Here, again, the treatises upon the science can be of no use 
except to the instructor who can find in them tLe suggestions and 
knowledge he needs. It is in nature itself, that the subjects of the 
lessons must be sought. Let us draw the attention of the child to the 
arrangement of the rocks, to their composition, to the fossils they con- 
tain, to the action of erosion exercised by the courses of water upon their 
sides. These intuitions, incessantly repeated during the whole period 
of primary study, exercise the faculty of observation, give rise to reflec- 
tions upon the causes of geologic phenomena, and are a provision against 
the false notions and old theories which fill the little books with which 
the schools are inundated. 

Experiments in Physics and Chemistry. 

Physics and chemistry are sciences which treat of matter, but which 
have for their special object to study its properties. They may be 
called abstract-concrete, and seem to offer less hold for iniuilive teach- 
ing, but in the primary school the pupils may be led to physico-chemical 
generalizations by the path of experiments. The most easy and 
simple notions are chosen to be rendered intuitive, and by the aid of 
apparatus, they can be presented in a way to strike the mind of the 
child vividly. This teaching must be made useful to the pupils by 
allowing them to make their own experiments. In this science, as in 
all the others, it is necessary carefully to avoid beginning with defini- 
tions and laws. Children cannot comprehend these until nearly the 
end of their studies and after they have made innumerable observa- 
tions in the cabinet of physics and in the laboratory. The beginners 
then will have nothing to do with molecules, atoms, hypotheses upon 
heat, light, electricity, etc. 



506 INTUITION AND INTUITIVE METHODS. 

The chemical terminology, notations and equations cannot be taught 
exprofesso ; but used experimentally in the upper classes, they become 
familiar by degrees. 

Physics is a science which permits the incessant application of the 
fertile principle of action in aid of the numerous experiments which 
the pupils can imagine and perform themselves. Mechanics is also 
very valuable in this point of view. The notions of force and mo- 
tion may be inculcated by the observation of moving bodies ; the study 
of simple machines makes the pupils ingenious, and a powerful argu- 
ment for culture can be drawn from them by inciting the pupils to 
construct little mechanical objects and resolve certain problems, not by 
the aid of figures, but by means of apparatus. 

Geometric Forms and Construction. 

Frobel made geometry one of the pivots of his system. It is indeed 
a science which teaches rectitude of mind and the process of reason- 
ing. It prepares the child to conceive of abstraction without which 
science is impossible. It must be presented in the primary school un- 
der the concrete and intuitive form, by the aid of material figures and 
graphic constructions. At first the child learns to distinguish the dif- 
ferent solids, to name them, to make them of paper, of wire, or of clay. 
These exei'cises give skill to the fingers, justness to the eye, and fur- 
nish fundamental notions of geometric terms which it is impossible to 
make understood by beginning with definitions. In the kindergarten, 
large use is made of these exercises, which the primary school should 
resume and complete. Most of the properties of objects are made 
intuitive by easy and gradual constructions. This is a vast field to be 

exploited. 

A rithmetic — Drawing. 

Arithmetic must be attached to geometry. The science of numbers 
is difficult only when taken in its purely abstract character, which 
makes it inaccessible to the minds of children. By applying it to 
geometi-y it is rendered concrete, and becomes a powerful means of 
intellectual development. It is the same with the metric system, which 
gives no useful and persistent result if confined to definitions and nu- 
merical applications. It is by making learners measure with a verita- 
ble meter, teaching them to manipulate the weights and measures, to 
construct square or cubic measure, to appreciate at sight the extent of 
bodies, that these important notions are engraved upon the mind. 

Drawing is one of the most efficacious means of rendering the teach- 
ing of the sciences intuitive. Children have a special liking for 
drawing. This natural disposition should be taken advantage of to 
make them represent largely the objects studied in their different les- 
sons. We do not speak here of esthetic drawing, but only of very 
simple graphic constructions. The apparatus for teaching physics and 
chemistry, the machines and utensils which have been analyzed, the 
geometric figures which have been studied, form good subjects for 



INTUITION AND INTUITIVE METHODS. 50 7' 

drawing. Sometimes let tlie child draw from objects, which habituates 
his eye to observe proportions ; sometimes let him draw them from 
memory, which is a much more intense intellectual labor, and one de- 
sirable for frequent use. 

Thus we see all the sciences are an inexhaustible mine of exercise, 
of observation for the development of the creative faculties. 

When we pass in review the whole series of the sciences of observa- 
tion, we are struck with the immense number of notions they contain. 
We are apt to think there will not be time enough to teach them in 
the primary school,* where writing and reading take a large place. 
This is a misapprehension. The important thing is not to make the 
children go to the bottom of all these sciences, to form physicists, chem- 
ists, geometricians of them. The accumulation of notions is an evil, 
for the mind can, no more than the stomach, assimilate food taken in 
too large quantities. It is necessary to make a choice from this mass 
of knowledge upon all points, to take the most important, that to 
which the principle of intuition can best apply. The instructor must 
not be anxious to teach too many things to his pupils. The important 
tiling is to develop the faculties, and the scientific elements are the only 
means adapted to this culture. To form a sound judgment should be 
the constant aim of the efforts of the professor. He must watch with 
especial care not to fatigue the brain. The prodigies of ten years old 
are always badly balanced, and become mediocre beings. It is better, 
as Montaigne said, " to have the head well made than too full." 
Objections to Intuitive Teaching Considered. 

Intuitive teaching has often been reproached with being dry, arid, 
tedious ; with not developing the imagination or the literary aptitudes ; 
with suppressing the idea of pains-taking and effort, making study a 
kind of play; destroying religious faith, the belief in the supernatural, 
giving the child the habit of scientific research which leads him to pos- 
itivism and materialism. 

Intuitive teaching is not dry, arid, tedious, except when given under 
the form of object lessons in which the attention of the child is only 
drawn to objects with which he is perfectly acquainted, of which he 
has long had the intuition, and when things of all kinds are spoken of 
which he has not seen and which are not shown to him. Thus, a penknife is 
given to a pupil, and he is told that it consists of a handle and one or two 
blades, then the making of steel is explained, the elephant that fur- 
nished the ivory handle is mentioned, Africa and India, which that 
pachyderm inhabits, negroes, slavery, etc. Nothing can be less intui- 
tive, so ordinary and so uninteresting as such exercises, which neither 
teach how to observe nor how to judge, or even how to talk. 
Influence on Imagination and Style. 

Far from cooling off the imagination, the true intuitive study of the 
sciences by observation develops it far better than exclusively literary 

*Iii Belgium and France the primary school keeps the pupils till they are fourteen. 



608 INTUITION AND INTUITIVE METHODS. 

studies. The latter produce superficial minds, pre-occupied alone with 
form, which are in the liLibit of looking only at the phrase, and remaiji 
inattentive to the reality behind it. lu no language is there any liter- 
ary work that can act as powerfully upon the imagination as nature 
when observed wuth an attentive and intelligent eye. There is more 
true poeti-y in astronomy than in Racine or Boileau. The spectacle 
of the starry heavens opens to thought vaster horizons and fills the 
soul with an enthusiasm far greater than that elicited by the reading 
of an epic poem. What writer ever imagined a variety of colors, forms 
and manifestations of all kinds to be compared with that presented by 
animals and plants ? What are the metamorphoses of Ovid, the tales 
of Perrault by the side of the wonderful phenomena revealed by the 
life -of the silk-worm, the bee, the ant, the lowest animals and the most 
common plants ? 

It is not true that intuitive teaching is unfavorable to literary culture. 
It is, on the contrary, the essential condition of a rational literary cul- 
ture. It furnishes words and the thoughts they represent from the 
very earliest age. It teaches to enunciate with clearness and simplicity 
the thoughts which have been spontaneously formed in the mind. It 
is true that it repudiates those rules of style which consist in amplify- 
ing a dictated summary, in describing things which have not been ob- 
served, and in recounting feelings which the child has not felt. But 
these exercises do not teach to express thoughts in writing, and accus- 
tom their victims to be satisfied with mere words. 

There is reason in saying that the study of great writers is excellent 
for literiiry culture ; but intuitive teaching does not exclude it ; it pre- 
pares the mind to undertake it successfully. It is wrong to begin to 
explain authors top soon. How do we suppose a primary school pupil 
can reap any benefit from reading : Animals sick with the pestilence, 
a scene from Tartuffe, the Imprecations of Camillus, a Funeral Oration 
hy Bossuel, an Epistle of Boileau, when we dare not pretend that a 
child of twelve years of age possesses enough experience of life, enough 
ideas and judgment, to seize upon the true meaning of those works, 
which were written for the instruction or amusement of men, and not 
for the education of children in a primary school ? Lamartine, in his 
Voyage en Orient, makes a very just reflection apropos to this : " Every 
wave," he says, " urges me towards Greece ; I touch it. Its appearance 
moves me profoundly, much less however than if all these memories 
had not withered in my heart by having been amassed in my memory 
before my thought understood them. Greece is to me like a book 
whose beauties are tarnished because we were made to read it before 
we had the power to comprehend it. I prefer a tree, a fountain under 
a rock, a laurel rose on the border of a river, under the crumbled arch- 
way of a bridge tapestried with vines, to the monument of one of those 
classic kingdoms which recall nothing to my mind but the ennui they 
gave me in my childhood." 



INTUITIOX AND INTUITIVE METHODS. 509 

But how can we form the style by intuitive teaching? it will be o,sked. 
Shall we only require of the pupil to describe the things he has seen 
and the feelings he really felt? 

And why should we seek for other subjects ? Do we teach style by 
imitated composition and verbiage ? 

We highly appreciate the originality of writers who are imposing by 
their talent or their genius, and we would make the pupils in the pri- 
mary and secondary schools make imitations and amplifications which 
can have no other effect than to pi-event that precious quality from de- 
veloping! Has not Boileau, that master iu the art of writing, said, 
" Before writing, learn to think " ; " what is well conceived is clearly 
spoken, and the words come easily to tell it." 

Intuitive teaching, which teaches how to think and produces concep- 
tion before description, is what must be preferred even as preparation 
for literary studies. 

Inlniiive Teaching makes School attractive. 

Shall we speak of the reproach cast upon intuitive teaching because it 
banishes pain, labor and effort by transforming studies into a species 
of joy ? Is the school then supposed to be a gloomy place where httle 
children are condemned to painful, wearisome labors ? Is it not better 
to make them feel that work is not a punishment, and that the ideal, 
■which is the sovereign good, is not repose but useful activity ? Intui- 
tive teaching abolishes the sterile efforts which these pupils must make 
to whom things are spoken of, of which they have not the least idea 
and which they do not see, but replaces them by that fertilizing effort 
of the mind which seizes with avidity the notions presented to it in an 
attractive form. By rendering the earliest studies painful, we rebuff 
the children and disgust them with study. This is why the school, so 
badly organized, has need of punishments and rewards as a provoca- 
tive of labor, while the kindergarten and the school in which the 
teaching is intuitive do very well without those factitious means of 
emulation and repression. 

Intuitive Teaching not Irreligious, nor' Immoral. 

Intuitive teaching has been accused of being opposed to morality, and 
of leading to materialism by the habit it gives the mind to admit only 
what has been proved, to observe only what is tangible. 

In certain places the development of the natural sciences and their 
introduction into the programmes of primary instruction are bitterly 
combatted, because they are accused of being irreligious. Herbert 
Spencer has perfectly answered this objection. " Far from science 
being irreligious," he says, " it is the abandonment of science that is 
irreligious. Let us make an humble comparison. Let us suppose an 
author whom we should salute every day with praises expressed in 
pompous style. Let us suppose that the wisdom, grandeur and beauty 
of his v^orks are the constant subject of the praises addressed to him. 
Let us suppose that those who praise his works have never seen even 



510 INTUITION AND INTUITIVE JIETIIODS, 

the cover of them, have never read tliem, never even tried to compre- 
hend them; of vi^hat value would their praises be? And yet, if we 
may be permitted to compare small things with great, let us see how 
humanity has generally conducted itself toward the universe and its 
great cause. It is not science, then, but indifference to science, that is 
irreligious." 

Intuitive teaching can only be considered immoral by those who look 
upon morality as a mass of traditional prescriptions to be inculcated 
upon children by the aid of formulas which they are taught to learn 
by heart. It is thought that moral culture, which is the essential part 
of general education, consists in preaching sermons and saying cate- 
chisms." 

The field for the culture of morality is consequently the family and 
the schools. It is obtained by observing a discipline that is conforma- 
ble to nature. By developing good feelings inculcated early, by inspir- 
ing sincerity, by forming upright hearts and characters, by showing 
that in all circumstances labor is the law of humanity, by transforming 
the school into a little society in which reign truth and justice, we 
form moral beings much more easily than by telling them stories called 
moral stories, and by discourses upon virtue and vice. 

" The intuition of morality," says M. Guilliaurae, " is the knowledge 
of duty. Now duty is not the result of theories. It is derived as little 
from ethics as digestion is derived from physiology. Theory, true or 
false, plays but a subaltern part in it. It exercises control for the 
acquiescence of the intellect over the will already fixed without it. 
But the practice of duty which is the result of action that has become 
habit, alone has importance for the ends of education." 

Faith in the supernatural has been in all times the greatest obstacle to 
social progress. The school of the people was not made to preserve the 
chains which have so long interfered with the blossoming out of the 
human intellect. A powerful scientific current bears us along. Free 
examination is the characteristic of modern civilization. In our 
society man has no lenger to expect anything but from himself, from 
his own will, his own energy, his own intelligence. If we wish to pre- 
serve the conquests that are dear to us and constitute our glory, we 
must conform our system of education to the principles which rule 
modern society. Authoritative teaching, dogmatic, narrow and full of 
errors, prejudices and falsehoods, bequeathed to us by the scholasticism 
of the middle ages is to give place to intuitive teaching which develops 
the child in the integrity of his faculties and will prepare generations 
of intelligent, moral and free men. 



INTUITIONS IN OBJECT TEACHING. 



SUITABLE TO THE KINDERGARTEN PERIOD.* 

DiESTERWEG, in answer to the questions of his pupils, "What are the 
intuitions that shall be addressed?" "What shall we awaken?" "Out of 
what fields?" " Whence shall we take them?'' — gave the following beau- 
tiful resume. 

"Let us look at the different kinds of intuitions — let us enumerate them." 

1. Sensuous intuitions — not given merely mediately through the senses, 

but immediately or directly — outward objects. 

2. Mathematical intuitions — representations of space, time, number, and 

motion, also belonging to the outward world and not directly given 
by the senses, but mediately through them. 

3. Moral intuitions — The phenomena of virtuous life in man. 

4. Religious intuitions, originating in man whose sentiments relate him to 

God. 

5. ^stlietic intuitions, — from the beautiful and sublime phenomena in 

nature and human life (artistic representations). 

6. Purely human intuitions, which relate to the noble mutual relations of 

man in love, faith, friendship, etc. 
Social intuitions, which comprise the unifjan^ of men in the great 
whole in corporations, in communities, and State life. The school 
cannot otfer all these subjects of intuition according to their dilfer- 
eut natures and their origin; for the school will not take the place 
of life; it only supposes them, connects itself with them, and refers 
to them, it points them out in all their compass, occupies itself with 
them, and builds up with them on all sides the foundation of intel- 
ligence. 
The sensuous intuitions relate to the corporeal world and the changes in 
it. The pupil must see with his own eyes, as much as possible, must hear 
with his own ears, use all his senses, seek the sensuous tokens of things in 
their phenomena upon, under, and above the ground, in minerals, plants, 
animals, men and their works, sun, moon, and stars, physical phe- 
nomena, etc. 

The mathematical intuitions are developed out of the sensuous, by easy 
al)stractions lying near at hand, — the representations of the expansion of 
space compared one with another, those of time in succession, the repre- 
sentations of number — the how much — the ever-moving representations 
of change in space, and the progression of the same. The simplest of 
these representations are those of space; the rest become objects of intui- 
tion by means of these, by points, lines, and surfaces. In arithmetic, for 
instance, points, lines, and their parts, bodies and their parts are the ma- 
terial of intuitions. 

The moral intuitions come to the pupil through man, through his life 
with his relatives, as in tho school through schoolmates and teachers. 
These are naturally inward intuitions which embody themselves in the 

*T.akon from Chapter on Auschauungsunterricht (•' Intuitional" or "Object Teaching") 
in the ecUtiou of Die Wegweimr fur Deidsche Lehrer, issued by Diesterweg's friends 
after his death in numbers from 1873 to 1879. Ttie Chapter entire will be found iw 
Barnard's Journal of Education toi 1880, p. 417. 



INTUITIONAL OR OBJECT TEACHING. 

expression of the countenance, in the eye, in the speech. The pupil's own 
experience is the chief thing here as elsewhere. Happy the child that is 
surrounded by thoroughly moral, pure men, whose manifestations lay in 
him the moral foundation of life. The moral facts of history are pointed 
out to hiiu by the teacher from his own intuilion, in a living manner by 
means of the living word, the eloquent lips, aud the feeling heart. 

To religwuH intuitions the child comes through the contemplation of na- 
ture, its phenomena and beneficent workings, through the piety of his 
parents, the commands of the father and mother, through contemplating 
the community in the house of worship, through religious songs in the 
school, through religious instruction and confirmation in school and 
church, through religious-minded teachers and pastors, biblical stories, etc. 

^■Eathetic intuitions are awakened by the sight of beautiful and sublime 
objects of nature (flowers, trees, stars, crystals, sky, and sea, rocky moun- 
tains, landscapes, storms, thimder-showers, etc.), and the real objects of 
art, pictures and picture-galleries, statues, gardens, poetical products, and 
human speech. We can classify their specific differences, calling them 
moral, aesthetic, etc., but I hold it better to place them in one category. 
Tlie strong moral law equally binding upon all men, this field of view 
does not include, for its contents cannot be unconditionally required. 
That belongs to the free, beautifully human development, which is de. 
pendent upon conditions that are not attainable by every one. 

The so-called purely human intuitions are related to the nobly formed 
human lives of individual men whose characters (Inhalt) proceed from the 
strongest conceptions of morality and duty, from sympathetic affections, 
friendship, aud love, compassion, and loving fellowship, and other shining 
phenomena of exalted human life as they are met with in the more refined 
development and culture of lofty and pure men. Happy is the child who 
"\ is in their sphere! If the home offers nothing in this respect, it is difficult 

to supply the want. Let the teacher do what is possible by the hold he 
has upon the school and by all his own manifestations. 

The social intuitions, that is the social circumstances of men in a large 
sense are determined for the child by the manifestations of the community 
in the schools, in the churches, in the assemblies of the people, in public 
festivals, and especially in stories in which the teacher, by his living 
insight into states, nations, and warlike communities, defines to the 
scholar the best living representations of great deeds. Our early domes- 
tic life, not a public one, was an obstacle to the growth of these so impor- 
tant intuitions. How can he who has experienced nothing, understand 
liistory? How can he who has not seen the people make a living picture 
of its life? Small republics have endless advantage in respect to the 
observation of public life and patriotic sentiment. Words, even the most 
eloquent, give a very weak, unsatisfactory compensation for observation. 
The year 1848 has, in this respect, brought most important slops of pro- 
gress.* Prominent above all other considerations is the importance of the 
life, the intelHgence, the standpoint, the character of the teacher, for lay- 
ing the foundation of living observation in the soul, in the mind, aud in 
the disposition of the pupil. What he does not carry in his own bosom 
he cannot awaken in the bosom of another. Nothing else can compensate 
for the want of this. The teacher must himself have seen, observed, 
experienced, investigated, lived, and thought as much as possible, and 
should exhibit a model in moral, religious, aesthetic, and purely human 
and social respects. So much as he is, lo much is his educational instruc- 
tion worth. He is to his pupils the most instructive, the most appreciable, 
the most striking object of observation. 

*" We hopp," pays Diesterweg'? biographer, "that Father Die?tervveg would have heen 
satisfied with the progress from 1848 to 1871 if he could have experienced it, but let r.s 
keep watch of ourselves in spite of all that, for security. Tlie chief battle of the 
German nation seems but just now (1873) to be beginning." 



SOME DIFFICULTIES AND ENCOURAGEMENTS 

IN KINDERGARTEN "WORK.* 
BY MISS E. A. MANNING. 



THE SITUATION. 

In attempting to bring before j^ou Kindergarten work in its discourag- 
ing and its encouraging aspects, I felt it would be inapossible to treat tlie 
subject exhaustively, so I have used the word some in the title of my 
paper. It is to some of the difficulties and some of the encouragements 
that I wish to refer. It would have been presumptuous in me to aim at 
giving a full view of the matter, nor would the short time at disposal 
allow of my presenting to you such a view, even had I been capable of 
doing it. I hope, however, that my shortcomings and gaps and omis- 
sions will be made up and filled in by you later in the evening. If from 
your varied and growing experience you will give the help that you 
can so well render, my poor word "some " may change itself into "many" 
before we part, even if it cannot take the comprehensive style of "all." 

But of what use is it to look at this subject? Will it prove helpful to 
do so? I certainly think it ought. We generally recognize, so that to say 
so sounds almost like a truism, that in all departments of life and action 
it is desirable to stand still now and then, and to reconuoiter our position. 
We need occasionally to notice how much ground we have traversed, and 
whither our present line of march is tending. And this is true in regard 
to Kindergarten work as much as any other kind of work. Besides, I 
think that for the sake of sympathy, those who are laboring for a com- 
mon object ought to compare experiences. It is often a relief to find that 
our own difficulties are not peculiar to ourselves. As soon as people 
throw off their shells and husks, we perceive that in other's minds there 
exist the same puzzles as in our own, in other's lives the same disheartening 
obstacles. Thus a fellow-feeling springs up, which is one of the strongest 
bonds of life, and which, moreover, imparts such force in the pursuit of 
a common aim, that by it a few may become a thousand, and weak hands, 
united in their effort, may effect the stroke of a giant. 

Now I prefer to take the difficulties of Kindergarten work before its 
encouragements, because I do not wish our latest impressions to be of a 
hopeless kind. You will perhaps afterwards again draw attention to the 
depressing side of the subject, but it is not my desire to close with that. 

I must premise that by difficulties I mean the hindrances that we meet, 
in the realization of what may be called the possible. I think an aim 
which is pronounced difficult is one which is, under favorable circum- 
stances, attainable. No one but Jules Verne talks of difficulties in the way 
of our reaching the moon, because the conditions of the universe make 

* A Paper read to the members of the London Frabel Society, February 11, 1879. 

33 



514 DIFFICULTIES AND ENCOURAGEMENTS 

such an aim impossible. It is true that we speak of insuperable difficul- 
ties, but 1 think the expression is generally relative. It means impossible 
to you or to me, but not to the human race. At any rate, the difficulties 
that I shall refer to are like logs and stones that lie in our road, which, 
indeed, may perhaps lie there for ever, but which, by a sufficient number 
of stout, active arms, may perhaps be dragged away, if not in our own 
day, yet by others at a later time. 

DIFFICULTIES — PRACTICAL AND THEORETICAL. 

I. I will divide our difficulties into two kinds, practical and theoretical, 
and I shall take the practical ones first. 

1. In the management of a Kindergarten, the teacher has to encounter 
the ordinary hindrances that every-day life presents to all workers — those 
outward obstacles which seem as if they had a spite against any ideal 
ever being realized by any one. Some of these ordinary difficulties crowd 
especially around teachers, partly, I think, because teaching is one of 
those professions which depend for success on extreme regularity. Some 
other kinds of work can be partly timed at will, so that you can, if need- 
ful, stand behind the hedge till the way is clear. But teachers have to 
go straight along the middle of the road, and thus cannot escape the force 
of the wind and the roughest stones. And there are so many different 
kinds of trouble to encounter in an undertaking like a school or a Kinder- 
garten — troubles from landlords, from servants, from ill-health, from 
family anxieties, from want of capital, and so on. And when all things 
are for once at their best, in stalks one morning scarlet fever or whooping- 
cough, seizes a child or two and scares the others away, leaving the 
teachers to an empty school-room. Many of these troubles are the lot of 
any household, but they fall on teachers with extra frequency and force. 
And when the air is thus full of perplexities, how impossible it is to spend 
that quiet thought on the preparation for teaching which alone can make 
it tell on the pupils! A potter cannot mould his clay jar while some one 
is jogging his arm. The teacher may then have a high ideal for her Kin- 
dergarten, but these external difficulties maim and spoil her highest pur- 
poses. Prudence and precaution can doubtless enable her to ward off 
many of such evils; these qualities, however, must have time for growth, 
and besides, we are all so interlinked in life, that the carelessness of 
others hinders us often as much as our own. Outward difficulties may 
have the best subjective results, only we are not now considering devel- 
opment of character, but the attainable standard of work; and I feel 
strongly that in judging of Kindergarten success, these difficulties of an 
ordinary Idnd have to be taken into account. They tend, in spite of 
patience, energy, and persistency on the part of the teacher, to make her 
practice disappointingly below her ideal. One difficulty of this class I may 
specially refer to, that of finding efficient assistants. It is to be hoped that 
this hindrance, which is already lessening, will vanish more and more as 
a greater numher of students come forward to avail themselves of the 
facilities afforded for Kindergarten training, but at present it often causes 
teachers to fail of accomplishing what they otherwise would and could, 
Somethnea, however, the salaries offered do not attract the most capable 



IN KINDERGARTEN WORK. 515 

helpers. If the experience of the head of a Kindergarten is supplemented 
in a responsive way by earnest and willing assistants, whose training is 
still in progress, or who have just finished their course, an organic whole- 
ness prevails, which conduces to economy of effort, effectual division of 
labor, and the happiest relations of mutual confidence. If, on the con- 
trary, the teacher's plans are not seconded by the bright and ready intel- 
ligence of her fellow-workers, she could not have to encounter a greater 
diflftculty in the Kindergarten path. 

3. Now another hindrance has to be considered — a very important one 
— the absence of enough cooperation on the part of parents, Frcebel's 
principles have as yet been so little studied by English mothers that they 
show much indift'erence and lack of interest as to wnat the Kindergarten 
teacher is attempting with their children. Johnnie and Ethel are at an 
inconvenient age, troublesome in the nursery and interrupting in the 
school-room, so their mother, by a friend's advice, scuds them to a Kin- 
dergarten. The children delight in the change; it is ascertained that they 
are treated kindly and kept amused. The plan is therefore regarded as 
satisfactory, and the mother's part is ended. But the teacher agrees with 
Frcebel as to the essential importance of unity of training between the 
home and the Kindergarten. She observes the harm to the child of a want 
of continuity of influence. In some cases actions forbidden here are 
allowed there; often the nurse imparts an undesirable tone and feeling. 
This want of harmony sometimes obliges the teacher to begin again, as it 
were, each day, the knitted stitches having been allowed to drop through 
at home. But suppose the home treatment is of the very best, the teacher 
still feels that she is working a good deal in the dark. She longs to be 
able to confer on the child's character with those who see it constantly, 
to be assured of the mother's sympathy, and to obtain the help that only 
a mother's experience can give. Besides, if parents entered iuore fully 
into what Froebel meant by training for little children, they would co- 
operate more than the}' do in regard to regular attendance, and would not 
think that it was mainly a debarring the child from amusement if they 
keep it away for a term. Kindergarten teachers constantly say that the 
only pupils upon whom their influence tells are those that are left quietly 
under their direction term after term. Again, parents do not often see 
the use of sending children while very young to a Kindergarten. Little 
ones of three or four are not in the way at home. But the teacher is at a 
disadvantage if she may not have these children under her care from a 
very early age. Perhaps the mother thinks that the teacher is apt to view 
the matter only from one side, and that she forgets how many family con- 
siderations have to be weighed. But this too, only points to the need of 
increased intercourse and confidence between the two. 

3. Having now hinted at some of the practical diflficulties that the 
teacher has to face in trying to carry out her ideal, I will ask you to 
notice for a few moments the more theoretical difficulties, those which 
attend the forming of a true ideal. And here several puzzling questions 
seem to me to arise; as, for instance, What is an ideal Kindergarten? 
Should we, or not, all describe it in the same manner? I am not going to 



516 



DIFFICULTIES AND ENCOURAGEMENTS 



venture to picture one. I should expect those to have the best ideal who 
simultaneously with close study of children hy means of experience, have 
studied Froebel's writings, because it was in his mind that the beautiful 
scheme originated. But unfortunately only such as can read German 
have full access to his works, and it is also unfortunate that his style is 
by no means easy or attractive. Something has already been accom- 
plished by his intimate friends in regard to simplifying and interpreting 
his writings. A few original books, too, have appeared in England and 
the United States, in which Frcebel's principles are set forth. But it is an 
abiding misfortune that only a few can study his own books to full advan- 
tage. Hence it becomes difficult to form an ideal, and there is consider- 
able danger lest the ideal formed should be a low one. I think the name 
Kindergarten, though open to some objections, is vx itself a help towards 
keeping up the thing; for it indicates that education should consist in 
aiding the child's self-development, which view Froebcl insisted on very 
strongly. But a name, after all, is not very much as a safeguard. Phil- 
ology shows us how singidarly words, after a while, get to be used in an 
opposite sense to the original one; only a true name does give us, I think, 
"jttore chance of returning to the true thing in our thoughtful moods. 

4. But another difficulty arises. Will a German system suit English 
children? Should not Kindergartens be in some way nationalized? I 
think these questions ought to be well discussed; I can only offer a sug- 
gestion or two on the subject. By na^onality I suppose we mean broadly 
those characteristics distinguishing one nation from another, which are 
due to the moulding force of the nation's past life and of its present cir- 
cumstances; and it seems inevitable that each people should have, in a 
degree, a peculiar system of education, because whatever it likes to be 
it will train its youth to become. But Froebel's principles of education' 
must, I should think, be accepted as true everywhere, because he con-' 
cerned himself with the humanitj' that underlies all nationality. The 
instincts and faculties for which he provided scope are not those of Ger-; 
man children only, but of all children. It is this deep basis which gives 
permanence to Kindergarten principles. Taking, however, a more lim- 
ited view of the question, a certain amount of adaptation does seem to be 
desirable in regard to his methods, or rather in the way of applying those 
methods. Frcebel dealt with children just as he found them. He util-' 
ized, therefore, their associations, their games, their surroundings, in aid 
of his plans of culture. Necessarily, then, there was a German coloring 
to a part of his system. To make Kindergartens national here, do they 
not need to take an English coloring? Many Kindergarten teachers have 
perceived this, and have exerted their imaginations to effect it. We are but 
acting in harmony with Froebel's ideas if we adapt our teaching to the child 
as it is, and inasmuch as a German child lives among different influences 
from an English child, or a town child is more intelligent than a peasant 
child, the means adopted for reaching intellect and feelings will some- 
times necessarily differ. With respect to nationality, it ought, however, 
to be borne in mind that nations can learn of each other to the great 
advantage of both (or all). We are apt to mix up with right feelings as 
to nationality the prepossessions that rest on national vanity. These we 



m KINDEEGARTEN WORK. 51 f 

must cast off before we can judge fairly of systems of education (or of 
anything else) belonging to neighbor nations. The disdain of all that is 
not native is neither healthy nor admirable, and cuts off many channels 
of benefit. Surely each nation, aware of its own imperfections, ought to 
welcome from any other nation all true thought and all good forms of 
embodjing that thought, and I think we may well be grateful to Germany 
for the idea of the Kindergarten, which might never have originated else- 
where. We have then to meet this modified difficulty as to how to nation- 
alize Kindergartens. I have classed it among theoretical difficulties, not 
because it has not everything to do with practice, too, but because it pri- 
marily concerns the type and ideal, which being once fixed the teacher 
will aim at its realization by practical effort. I am sure that all adapta- 
tion which is the result of an earnest study of Frabel's principles would 
have found much more sympathj^ with him than a servile reproduction of 
the form which he adopted, under the circumstances, as the most living 
and efficacious. 

5. Now we come to another difficulty in forming an ideal. It refers to 
the connection between the Kindergarten and the school. There appears to 
be considerable danger lest the school should force itself into the Kinder- 
garten. In regard to this danger, I would ask you to notice certain facts. 
Beyond the Kindergarten — still in the future — lie ten or twelve years of 
school life. Numbers of children now in the Kindergarten will remain 
in the hands of teachers till after the year 1890. Now the present school 
system involves a good deal of pressure. There is so much to be learned, 
and there is so little time to learn in. And then many teachers of these 
days are happily more considerate than foraierly as to conditions of health, 
and seek to cultivate other faculties as well as the intellectual ones. Thus 
they need more time at command. Can we wonder that they desire to 
appropriate the Kindergarten? The education-tree has grown larger, and 
wants room for its roots. Naturally it invades the space which it finds 
lying below it. There used to be less opportunity for this spreading pro- 
cess. But now the Kindergarten has collected the children, and the school 
presses downward into it. I think the same thing has taken place in the ele- 
mentary schools. If it had not been for earnest efforts the original infant 
school would have become, more than it now is, simply a field for teaching 
the elements of reading, writing, and arithmetic. The Kindergarten seems 
to be encountering the same risk, and I think some Kindergarten teachers 
find it difficult to make up their minds how to deal with this difficulty. 
Plausible arguments are at hand in favor of the early acquirement of 
school habits. Parents exert a strong pressure in regard to learning to 
read. The routine of school is familiar to young teachers (who have just 
passed through it), and children are so pliable that you can do with them 
pretty much as you like, if you choose to forget the reactions that will fol- 
low. Moreover, it is the fashion of the present day to look for results, 
and we are asked, What sort of results are your paper mats and clay birds' 
nests? Well! here again I should say that full discussion is important, 
and that the difficulty in forming an ideal should be earnestly met. One 
of the first educational principles of Frcebel is that the Kindergarten lays 
the basis of an education which should go on gently and harmoniously 



518 DIFFICULTIES AXD ENCOURAGEMENTS 

through its whole course. The child, then, should not be a subject for 
contention. No antagonism should exist between the Kindergarten 
teachers and the school teachers. But another of his principles is that 
every portion of the child's life has its own special type. Take the child 
of four and the child of eight. Each is in a peculiar phase of develop- 
ment, and needs training adapted to that phase. Then let the Kinder- 
garten suit itself to the Kindergarten age, and the school (I mean the 
school as it ought to be) to the school age. The very little child does not 
naturally show itself bookish; it prefers to learn from nature, by the inlets 
of its senses, through companionship, by its fancy, by efforts of short 
duration, through loving trust in those who care for it. Perhaps learning 
to read may be taught earlier than Frcebel recommended if taught intel- 
ligently, but the main thing is to let the child learn as its nature indicates. 
The mats and birds' nests are not the teacher's true results. These lie in 
quickened observation, in habits of attention and perseverance, in bright- 
ness of mind, in command of speech, in strengthened health, in a rever- 
ential tone, in gentle conduct, in a happy, well-developed childhood. 
The Kindergarten has its own conditions, its own growth and substance. 
It is not a mere empty space, into which the school can force itself at will. 
I think, then, that this difficulty as to invasion will settle itself in time, if 
only Kindergarten teachers carry out their work in a true and faithful 
spirit. It does seem to me that in some cases the Kindergarten is already 
too much like a school. The matter of the lessons is sometimes given, 
imparted to the children, or if, on the other hand, the teacher tries to 
elicit thought and replies, the poor little intellect may be unnaturally 
strained, whereas it is extremely important that children should be 
allowed to gather in from all that surrounds them in their own curiously 
grave way, and to ask questions on what they icnnt to know, and not 
on what does not interest them. Is there not also occasionally too niuch 
repression? Might not the children have more often a little free play and 
opportunity of following their own bent? I believe that our ideal needs 
some rectifying in these respects. Let but the Kindergarten be what it 
ought to be, and let the transition class occupy its proper place and school 
teachers will, I think, have no reason to regret that the children have not 
begun "lessons" at five years old. The determining of the relation 
between the school and the Kindergarten must then at present be counted 
among our difficulties, but already there are cases where that relation is 
satisfactorily settled. 

I have now referred to several kinds of difficulties — the ordinary ones 
nttached to teaching and its organization, including the difficulty of find- 
ing efficient assistants, the want of cooperation of parents, and then the 
difficulty of forming an ideal of a Kindergarten and finding out Froebel's 
ideal, the difficulty as to nationalizing it, and also in regard to the rela- 
tion of the Kindergarten with the school. 

ENCOURAGEMENTS. 

II. We now come to the second division of my subject — some of the 
encouragements in Kindergarten work. I hope I shall not unduly mag- 
nify these, but I think it is a great disadvantage to those who are inter- 
ested in a movement if they do not realize what causes for hopefulness it 



IN KINDKRGARTEN WORK. 519 

may and does present. Encouragements are the matters which make us 
take heart. Unless we may take heart, take courage, we are powerless in 
work and we cannot expect to succeed. They are the signs on our horizon 
which may legitimately nerve us to braver efiforts. No doubt it is very 
easy to misinterpret such signs for good or for evil, particularly as the work 
of interpretation falls a good to the temperament ; but, while we ought to 
make every endeavor to see facts truly, a hopeful spirit is well worth cul- 
tivating. Hopefulness helps to lessen our anxieties, and it has, besides, a 
happy facility for accomplishing its own predictions. Let me then bring 
before you a few of the encouraging aspects of Kindergarten work, asking 
you to add any cheering facts that I shall omit, and, if necessary, to qual- 
ify the picture with some gloomy tints. 

1. The lirst encouragement that I wish to mention — and it seems to me 
the greatest of all — is that Froebel's methods prove, in application, their 
intrinsic value. The more they are adopted, the more fitting they show 
themselves to be. This may be called an assertion without proof, but I 
think it is confirmed by the experience of teachers and the testimony of 
many parents. I believe we may be really encouraged by feeling that we 
have to do with a system of education which is not guess-work, not a 
short cut to resUlts, but a system, adapted by patient thought and care to 
the child's whole nature. Most of the work in life seems to consist in 
fitting one thing to another, more or less satisfactorily. The shoemaker 
preciminently succeeds only by fitting. We use other words for it — suit- 
ing, conforming, adapting, accommodating, employing means towards an 
end, and so on, but they all point to this process of fitting. Labor is 
always an adaptation of effort to result, an attempt to imitate the wonder- 
ful tittingness of the arrangements of God in nature. Now Froebel 
appears to have possessed in a special degree the genius of fitting. He 
looked at the child with a mind free from prepossessions, and with that 
philosophic simplicity which waits patiently until insight comes, and he 
saw how the child was selecting all that assisted its being to develop, in 
the home, the garden, and the wood, and then he arranged his Kinder- 
garten so as to fit the child's tastes, tendencies, habits, and requirements. 
This work took a long time, but he accomplished it at last, and the meth- 
ods that we employ ai"e the outcome of his patient zeal. We are some- 
times accused of being fanatical about Frrebel. The best means of ascer- 
taining whether we give him more than his due is to encourage the com- 
pletest examination of his system by those who disparage it. Let other 
educational reformers have their full share of encouragement. Let their 
systems be studied as thoroughly as Froebel's. He himself felt as much 
as any educator his inter-dependence with those who preceded him, and 
with his contemporaries. After such investigation, let Froebel's place be 
fixed, and I think it will not fail to be a high one, and in some respects 
unique. We ought to be the last to allow ourselves to be dogmatic on 
this subject. But let teachers say whether they find any methods at pres- 
ent available more fitted, more adapted, than Frcebel's to the child's men- 
tal and moral growth. We need not argue too much from the happiness 
that pervades the Kindergarten, yet this decidedly sup^ies a certain 
measure of favorable testimony, except to those who think that guided 
self-development has a tendency to make children miserable. The way 



520 DIFFICULTIES AND ENCOURAGMENTS 

in which Froebel's methods are fitted to each part and to the whole of a 
child's nature fills one more and more with wonder. We sometimes get 
almost tired of the words and phrases in which his views are expressed 
and reiterated, but we can recall the time when we first heard or read of 
them, and we rememlier how strongly the sense of adaptation impressed 
and struck us. And in all Kindergarten teaching of a real kind its fitting- 
ness is recognized. We notice how the child responds, like a musical 
instrument, to the teacher's endeavors, and how gently the faculties unfold 
themselves. I think then that the encouragement to be derived from 
experience is in itself enough to give us the heart and hope that we need. 
2. But we must go on to the second encouragement to be referred to. 
It is that Kindergarten work is extending, and that the sj'stem is becom- 
ing widely known and valued. If you are inclined to despond, you may 
say, and I cannot deny it, that this process of extension is after all less 
than we might hope or desire, but I do think it is enough to increase our 
courage. A few j^ars ago, if one mentioned a Kindergarten, one was 
required to explain from the very Taeginning what it was. But now the 
word is sufiicient, in manj'^ quarters, though by no means everywhere, and 
though the name may often call up a very imperfect image. It has not 
been without effect that so xnnny of those best acquainted with Frabel's 
principles have written and lectured upon these principles. But the great 
point is that good Kindergartens have been established, and that thus 
parents have had the opportunity of judging for themselves what they 
are. Every Kindergarten does work for the whole movement, as well as 
for its individual little pupils. And so it has come to pass that parents 
often enquire where good Kindergartens are situated, so that they may 
form their plans of residence accordingly. Some of our opponents 
explain this by saying that Kindergartens have become the fashion. I do 
not think this is true, if by fashion we mean something unreasoning. We 
might as well say that we use post-cards because it is the fashion to do 
so. Kindergartens exist, and they are adopted not because others adopt 
them, but because they have been proved to be useful. But not only 
are Kindergartens more in demand; it is encouraging to find that edu- 
cational authorities give more consideration to their nature and value. 
Certainly we are treated with somewhat less indifference than a few years 
ago. In lectures on educational reformers Froebel now has a recognized 
position. Cyclopedias include mention of his system. School boards 
have begim to incline towards Kindergarten teaching, and thus it has 
come under the eye of Inspectors, whose opinion seems to increase in 
f avorableness. Training colleges are taking into consideration and in some 
cases have adopted Fra?bers system as a part of their course. Is there 
not some solid encouragement in all this? And when we look abroad we 
see that in Germany Kindergartens, after a period of comparative decline, 
are getting into a more satisfactorj' condition; and the labors of those who 
have thought deeply on the subject, the Baroness Marenholtz-Billow, 
Frau Schrader, and others, are now telling on practical Kindergarten 
work. In Switzerland Mme. de Portugall is effecting most salutary 
changes in the infant schools of the Canton of Geneva. Mrs. Salis 
Schwabes' institution at Naples is helping to spread a knowledge of what 
the system, wisely applied, really is. In Austria and Hungary, and 



IN KINDERGARTEN WORK. 521 

Other countries, Kiudergartcns are spreading. From tlie United States 
we have encouraging reports of progress. Making due allowance for dis- 
appointments, from imperfect and superficial work in some quarters, I 
cannot but think that we have solid ground for satisfaction from this 
extension. If Kindergartens are a foolish fashion they will soon die out. 
Let us see whether in five years more the present degree of stability will 
not prove to be greatly increased. 

3. The third encouragement that I shall mention is that some of FroB- 
bel's principles are becoming more and more accepted in all departments 
of education. I do not mean to imply that this has come to pass just 
became of the Kindergarten movement. That may have helped towards 
it, probably has helped, but this is not the point. It has been well said, 
"If the oak flourish, it matters little who planted the acorn." But it is 
in every way a real source of encouragement if broader and more natural 
and harmonious views of education are beginning to prevail than for- 
merly. I may remind you that Frcebel did not originally occupy him- 
self about the training of little children. ^ He had been for most of his life 
a teacher of boys, and it was his experience with boys that helped him to 
develop and fix his educational theories. He did not feel that infants 
should have one kind of education and older children another. Different 
in method, truly, because every year of a child's life has its own type, but 
not different in principle, and that in every case the future, the manhood, 
should be kept in view. Now the general principles that he insisted on 
are evidently those to which educational opinion is somewhat tending. 
Take as an instance one of Froebel's main ideas — that education is con- 
cerned more with development of faculty than with the imparting of 
knowledge. This is now the frequent test for educational discourses. 
In an address lately delivered (by Mr. Goschen) it was said, "I hold that 
when a young man has completed his studies it is not enough to ask, 
' What does he know? ' but ' Has he learnt to learn? ' A too-narrow view 
of education ignores this vital necessity. It looks to acquirements alone, 
instead of tha capacity to learn." With Fro?bel, the imfolding of powers, 
the training of the instruments of thought and action, was an all-impor- 
tant matter, and it is satisfactory to perceive that this principle is gain- 
ing ground. Again, Frcebel insisted that education may and should be 
enjoyed. And have not good teachers begun to find now that hours at 
school may be happy hours to the pupil, in spite of old traditions? If 
instruction is adapted to the child's stage of intellectual growth, if it is 
just the food required by the hungry mind, why should it not also be con- 
nected with pleasure? The old notion as to the inseparableness of school 
and misery still seems to linger in regard to the accepted view of holidays. 
Friends condole M'ith children that the vacation is coming to an end, when 
very probably they are longing to return to the " sometbing-to-do " that 
school provides. Children of the Kindergarten do not adopt this orthodox 
idea, and will cry if they are obliged to stay away from it. And, as a more 
natural treatment of childhood and youth is gaining ground, it is becom- 
ing recognized that a school may have its enjoyments, and yet not be a 
place of idleness. Then, as to the importance of training for teachers. 
Here again we find that the educational world is much more in harmony 



522 DIFFICULTIES, ETC., IN KINDERGARTEN WORK 

with Froebel than could have been said fifty years ago. It used to be 
thought that the art of teaching came by intuition, or that there was no 
harm in acquiring it at the expense of the scliolars. At last training was 
introduced for elementary school teachers, and now it is becoming recog- 
nized that all teachers require it. Froebel had too high an idea of the 
teacher's vocation, whether for children of four or of any other age, to 
imagine that they could exercise their art well without earnest prepara- 
tion. I must not dwell on other principles of Froebel's which are getting 
to be more accepted. I will simply further mention his view that educa- 
tion is not of the intellect only, but should include the moral and religious 
nature, the imagination, manual work, and artistic training. That view 
also is making its way. The idea that he had of the dignity of labor is 
also spreading widely. We might multiply examples of this gradually- 
increasing accordance. I think I have shown sufficiently that we may 
reckon such accordance as one of our encouragements. Perhaps the time 
will come when our Frojbel Society will dissolve itself, not because it has 
failed of its objects, but because it will have no need for a separate 
existence. 

The encouragements that I have brought to your notice are that Kin- 
dergarten work supplies proof of its own value — that it is on the whole 
extending — and that Froebel's principles are gaining ground in regard to 
education generally 

I shall not attempt to weigh against each other our various difficulties 
and encouragements. But there is one point which should be noticed in 
regard to the resulting balance. It is that our difficulties seem to be dim- 
inishing and our encouragements to be growing. You may differ from 
me as to the position of the Kindergarten movement, but if we can agree 
that on the one side there is decay, and on the other vigor and advance, 
we may, I think, all feel that the balance is on the side of hope, and we 
may go on with increased toil and increased trust, which, in this as in all 
lines of work, are the unfailing conditions of true progress. 

In conclusion, I would suggest that we might as a body help forward 
Kindergarten principles more than we have yet done. The Froebel 
Society exists for the promotion of a high and noble aim. There must 
be stores of experience hidden in its members' private barns, which all of 
us ought to be allowed to share. Enough time has now elapsed for the 
effects of Kindergarten work to have come to light. Experiments have 
been made, and have succeeded or failed. The Kindergarten has come 
into contact with the school, and we are all anxious to learn the result of 
the slight collision which may have ensued. Our progress might be 
greatlv assisted if members of this society would throw their information 
and their opinions into the common heap, and I shall be very glad if I 
have helped to-night to throw down any barriers, to open any doors 
through which such stores may pour out. I feel that my remarks in this 
paper lack the full support of experience, and I have offered them with a 
full consciousness of their imperfection, but I beg you to treat them as 
mercilessly as you will, for we need thorough discussion of several of the 
points I have referred to, in order to arrive at true and matured judg- 
ments of Kindergarten work. 



1 



PLACE OF NATURE AND LIFE IN EARLY CULTURE. 

SUGGESTIONS OF PESTALOZZI AND FROEBEL. 



1. PESTALOZZI. 

Miss Lyschinska, in her recent volume on the " Educational Uses of 
the Kindergarten Principle," cites the following passages from Pestalozzi's 
Leonard and Gertrude to enforce the importance of developing the activity 
and moral sensibility of young children by communion with nature and 
home surroundings and occupations. The italics are JVliss L.'s: 

1. "Neither book nor any product of human skill, but life itself, yields 
the basis for all education and instruction." 

" She [Gertrude] drew her children's attention to various natural phe- 
nomena as these occurred in the fultilmeut of domestic duties, whether in 
the kitchen or parlor, in the field, the garden, or the woods. Her aim in 
all this was not to impart knowledge, but to awaken sympathy with objects in 
as far as tliey were interwomn with the incidents, duties, joys, and wants of 
the children's existence. "Whilst helping her [their mother] in the prepara- 
tion of the family meal, whilst engaged in carrying wood, in lighting the 
fire, and in fetching water, they were forced, by the very nature of their 
occtipations, to observe many of the properties of water, the effects of the 
atmosphere, smoke, wind ; they noticed the changes in water when motion- 
less in a tub or when flowing from a pump; they observed the transforma- 
tions of water into ice, snow, rain, hail, sleet; they registered its action 
upon salt and upon a flame; were aware that charcoal and ash were 
obtained from wood, and that the latter was subject to changes termed 
decay. All this they learned, not so much through the medium of words, 
but through having their attention fixed upon the objects and upon the 
changes which took place " [as they busied themselves with the things]. 

We append a few passages from Christopher and Alice in the same spirit 
and aim. — Editor. 

2. " The great point in bringing up a child is, that he should be well 
brought up in his own house : he must learn to know, and handle and use 
those things on which his bread and his quiet will depend through life; 
and it seems to me plain that fathers and mothers can teach that much 
better at home than any schoolmaster can do it at school. [And so of 
moral culture :] The schoolmaster tells the children of many things which 
are right and good, but they are never worth as much in his mouth as in 
the example of an upright father, or a pious mother. The child sees his 
father give him milk and bread, and his mother denies herself a morsel 
that she may give it to him. He feels and understands that he must 
' honor his father and mother ' who are so kind to him. So if at home a 
child sees a neighbor in distress of mind or body enlivened by kind words 
or actions of father or mother, or assists in such act towards any fellow 
creature, he learns to be merciful and to love one's neighbor. He learns 
it, without the aid of words, by the real fact; he sec mercy itself instead 
of learning words about mercy. The parents' teaching is the kernel of 
wisdom. The knowledge got from doing, under -wise parental example, 
is what the world calls practical common sense." 

To the citations from Froebel, we add several valuable suggestions from 
Miss Lyschinska to the same point. 



524 NATURE AND LIFE IN EARLY CULTURE. 

2. FROEBEL. 

Froebel enforces the same fundamental ideas in his work on the "Edu- 
cation of Man," as will be seen in the following paragraphs. The italics 
are by Miss L. : 

" Is there a solitary blossom, or outcome, of human thought, feeling, or 
volition, tliat does not send its taproot deep down into the subsoil of early 
years?"— (P. 54, paragraph 39.) 

"Every trade, whatsoever the parents' calling be, furnishes a starting 
point to \\\c child from whence he must work his way outwards towards 
the acquisition of any department of human knowledge." — (P. 58, para- 
grapli 40.) 

"Numberless perceptions regarding the constitution of things around 
miglit thus be garnered in the mind; such experience can only be supplied 
by the whole time and apparatus of school at an enormous cost afterwards, 
and perhaps it never can be supplied. So much is lost by neglecting the 
educational opportunities of home life." — (As above.) 

"A little child knows intuitively that the conditions of its mental well- 
being are bound up in the avocations of its parents; hence it follows 
wherever they go; where they remain, it remains; it hovers about and 

asks questions Parents, do not send it away in a fit of impatience, 

.... neither answer its questions directly It is, no doubt, easier 

to listen to the statement of another than to formulate one for one's self. 
But the quarter of a self-found answer is of infinitely greater value to your 
child than one half understood from you. Only secure to your child the 
conditions under which the answer is to be found." — (As above.) 

" How eagerly does the boy or girl take part in the labors of father and 
mother, not in the recreative or trifiing activities of life, but in those de- 
manding concentration and exertion! But it is just at such a time that it 
behooves parents to be careful; for by one look, one word, they may 
crush the instinct of activity, the constructive faculty, for a lengthened 
period of time. Parents, I beseech you not to refuse your children's prof- 
fered help because it is childish, useless, or even obstructive. Think of 
the surcharge of energy pent up in the being of a little child thus cast 
upon his own resources, knowing not in what direction this power is to 
expend itself! The child is a burden to itself; peevishness and listless- 
ness are the result." — (P. 68, paragraph 49.) 

"If you ever count upon receiving help at your children's hands, take 
early heed to cherish the desire for activity, even at the cost of some self- 
control and self-sacrifice." — (P. 69, paragraph 49.) 

"It is of the utmost importance that children should acquire the habit 
of cultivating a plot of ground of their own, long before the period of 
school life begins, for this reason: Nowliere, as in the vegetable world, can 
Jiis action be so clearly traced by him, entering in as a link in the chain of 
cause and effect. The effects are no less due to the intervention of his will 
than to the sequence of Nature." — (P. 75, paragraph 49.) 

"An instinctive yearning drives a child to busy himself with natural 
objects; but this longing is not only neglected, but deliberately frustrated 
from the beginning. "This instinct does not rest satisfied with apprehen- 
sion of the facts of Nature, nor of the secondary principles which govern 
these; its root lies far deeper. Stripped of all disguises, it is the eternal 
search made by man after the first, great, personal cause — the Godhead." 
— (P. 87, paragraph 55.) 

"How simple, how infinitely simpler than we at all imagine, are the 
sources and means of human well-being! All the conditions of human 
happiness lie at the door of each one of us, and we are blind. We may 
see them, but we do not heed them; too simple by far, too easy of appli- 
cation to attract our notice, they are held in utter contempt. We send 
afar off in search of help, and we know not that the educational remedy 
can only come from ourselves. Hence it is that a whole fortune does not 
suffice to restore a lost inheritance to our children, nor to make good the 
deficiencies in after life, which never would have existed if we had pos- 
sessed greater insight into the wants of early childhood." — (P. 36.) 



NATURE IN EARLY EDUCATION. 



525 



3. MISS LYSCHINSKA. 

1. Our ideas are rapidly undergoing great modification with regard to 
what is the meaning and probable scope which Nature has in human 
affairs. Underlying, as it does, all existences, drawing as we do from it 
all the highly wrought material products of civilized life, finding in the 
recognition of its higher unifornuties an exercise worthy of the keenest 
intellects, the source of the artist's inspiration, many are even now ready 
to see in Nature's teachings the symbols of yet higher truth, most weighty 
in their ethical bearings. In the face of all these changes, is it strange to 
suppose that even in education Natui'e may wear a new aspect and may 
occupy a new position? 

3. The method above described of introducing natural phenomena to the 
observation of young children requires a few words of exposition. The 
Frcebelian believes that the younger the child is, the more he is part and 
parcel with Nature — at one with her. The animal is so strong in him 
that he is born with a very great capacity for enjoyment of the sights and 
sounds and changes which Nature spreads out before him. This sympathy 
with beasts and birds and flowers ought to be fostered and to receive 
direction. The object lesson, with its stereotyped number of heads 
ranged in unvarying order, is too artificial a method to attain the end 
desired, namely, that of inspiring young children with the love of Nature, 
giving them a habit of looking into her every-day marvels, a familiarity 
with her ways. The first thing to do is not so much to talk about the 
things, as to be bufty with them; as a part of their education, children 
must have opportunities given them of entering into a kind of compact 
with Nature to serve and be served by her. It is not the dry anatomy of 
Nature's facts but the personal relation in which the child finds himself to 
certain objects that first awakens his interest. For this reason the educa- 
tional institution I have taken as a sample counted a plot of ground under 
cultivation, a few pet animals, a few kitchen utensils for the illustration 
of the simplest domestic processes as they occurred, amongst their indis- 
pensable educational apparatus. Of course it is not the fact of possessing 
them, but of weaving their use into the general scheme which constitutes 
the value of such means. 

Home surroundings, too, gain in importance in our eyes in the educa- 
tion of the young as we proceed on this plan. There is so much to inter- 
est and to occupy, that we have only to select from our vast store. The 
practice has hitherto been rather to despise what is near, with a view to 
sending the infant mind abroad in search of marvels; the mind, it is said, 
must rise above its immediate surroundings to the unseen. 

A few general considerations which serve as guides in the selection of 
subjects, according to Frcebelian principles, may be shortly stated, viz : 

1. The season of the year. 

2. Local conditions (such as the pursuits of the people in the neighbor- 
hood). 

3. Social customs. 

To make a proper selection of subjects, and carry out the above sug- 
gestions effectually, the head of the institution should have received, in 
her professional training, a practical acquaintance with the simplest 
gardening operations. 



THE KINDERGARTEN PRINCIPLE IN INFANT SCHOOLS. 

BY MISS MARY J. LYSCHINSKA. 



SUGGESTIONS PRIMARILY FOR ENGLAND, BUT SOUND EVERYWHERE. 

Much of the educational work attempted in the English infant school is provided for, 
theoretically at least, in our primary schools— the lowest grade of our city public schools ; 
but the work is not begun so early or followed out so systematically as in English infant 
schools modeled after thone of the Home and Colonial Infant School Society. The 
difficulties in the way of introducing the fundamental principle of natural development 
into the infant school- of England, arises from the impatience of parents, as well as the 
requisitions of the Code, for results which can be seen in actual attainments of book 
knowledge and measured by official examinations. Neither the infant school, or 
Kindergarten, is reijarded in reference to its own nature and functions, but in reference 
to the children making more rapid progress in certain studies which are attended to 
further on. The proper treatmentof children between the ages of 3 and > years requires 
more individual attention than can be given to large masses, or by teachers not specially 
trained in Kindergarten occupations, and with certain refinement of feeling. There is a 
strong tendency, as well as great temptation to a class of parents, to develope early the 
productive activities of their children, and to show off their proficiency in this and other 
directions. The innate modesty of childron should not be prematurely brushed away. 
On all these points the suggestions of Miss Lyschinska, who has rare opportunities of 
studying these phases of child culture, as Superintetident of Method in Infant Schools 
under the School Board of London, and in the Kindergarten of Madame Schrader of 
Berlin, are of great value.— Editor. 

It has been justly a boast with the Germans that they, more than any 
other European nation, recognized Pestalozzi's efforts in the direction of a 
psychological basis for the beginning of instruction, and in considering 
education as a branch of statesmanship.. The political and social circum- 
stances of the time were peculiarly favorable to the reception of a new, 
creative principle in education. Geographically and politically Germany 
was a name; she had sunk to the depths of national degradation. But as 
with individuals, so with nations — the moments of a crushing misfortune 
are often those most favoralile to the birth of new spiritual truths. In 
his memorable "Addresses," Fichte's voice was heard like a trumpet-call 
throughout the land; he pointed to Pestalozzi as a saviour of the nations. 
From that hour the whole German scholastic world has become literally 
saturated with the principles of Pestalozzianism. So unreserved, so whole- 
sale has been the adoption of the new educational life, that, from its 
extent alone, it must be reckoned with as a national feature by all those 
who would study the intellectual life of Germany. Since then another 
wave of educational thought has been slowly passing over Germany, pro- 
ceeding from the original impetus given by Pestalozzi, yet with features 
sufficiently distinct to entitle it to a separate name. It has now reached 
our shores, and has been crystallized in the form of the " Kindergarten.'' 
The principle must, however, admit of a variety of adaptations; and it 
must, sooner or later, exert a greater influence than hitherto upon the 
co-existing institution of the infant school. 



THE KINDERGARTEN PRINCIPLE IN INFANT SCHOOLS. 627 

Meanwhile there seems to be one loophole of escape out of the difficulty, 
and that is the introduction of extraneous help — help not supplied in the 
usual way from elementary training colleges. Of course the weakness of 
such an experiment as that of introducing new auxiliaries into the routine 
of trained labor is evident, and consists in (1) the probable irregularity of 
such service, (3) the unskilled character of such help. If these arguments 
against voluntary aid are true generally, they hold good especially in the 
domain of school-keeping, where a little irregularity is sufficient to throw 
the whole educational machinery out of order. 1 am not, therefore, about 
to advocate the throwing open the floodgates for undisciplined energy to 
expend itself to the detriment of the children of the poor. 

Suppose an infant school to be excepted from the ordinary conditions of 
examination, though still subject to inspection and receiving aid on satis- 
factory proof of efficiency, according to Kindergarten principles. It is 
surely not inconceivable that permission for such an experiment might be 
obtained, nor need the sacred rules of the Code be infringed to any peril- 
ous extent. The Head would be a person generally acquainted with the 
principles and practice of education (not merely those of instruction), and 
she should be especially versed in the principles underlying Kindergarten 
practices. She might be assisted by a staff of auxiliary, but not unixvid, 
workers. These would rank as and receive the pay of pupil teachers in 
their second year, and they should, if possible, be numerous enough to 
admit of an average of not more than 25 children to each class. Thus a 
small school of 100 children in average attendance would be worked by 
the head and four pupil-teachers (viz. one of the ordinary kind, so as to 
comply with the requirements of the code, and three auxiliaries), who 
should be completely under the control of the Head, being nominated for 
appointment or subject to removal by her; and she, in turn, should be 
directly and solely responsible to a sub-committee of the school board or 
other highest school authority. The pay of such extra pupil-teachers need 
not be high. There are many young people to whom the opportunity of 
instruction and practice in genuine Kindergarten work would be a con- 
sideration more valuable than money. 

Mr. Meyers, an Inspector of one of the London Districts, observes in 
his Report for 1876: 

"When I had charge of the Hackney district, I repeatedly visited a 
School Board School where almost all of the girls were the children of 
professional thieves. The mistress was a lady who resigned a good 
position as private governess out of desire for this missionary work. The 
result of her work, as seen in the contrast in expression, speech, and 
aspect, between the new arrivals and those who had enjoyed a year's 
scliooling, was almost startling. I certainly felt that this lady had made 
a career which was entirely satisfactory, where every power that she 
possessed was finding its exercise in a direction, undoubtedly and without 
drawback, beneficent. In a career where the satisfaction derived from 
the work itself may be so soimd and so pervading, the amusements of 
leisure become less important. . . . The great needs of Elementary 
Schools is an improvement of their teachers; a large accession of teachers 
who have the gentleness of life-long culture and the hereditary instinct of 
honour." 

[The experience of St. Louis, under the wise and beneficent lead of 
Miss Blow, and Dr. Harris, is of great value in this connection.] 



528 THE KINDERGARTEN PRINCIPLE IN INFANT SCHOOLS. 

Oiir national system is not only covering all England with elementary 
schools, l)ut it is also multiplying centres for the discussion and elucida- 
tion of questions relating to education. For the functions of school 
boards will he but half performed in the future if they limit their action 
to voting supplies and to setting a blind macliinery in motion. As the 
mechanism may be expected to work with increasing smoothness, and 
with decreasing need for attention to the first elements of management, 
the higher work of school boards will consist in bringing a certain amount 
of educated thought to bear directly upon the problems of educational 
science. 

Would it not be possible, even now, to allow more scope for the appli- 
cation of Pestalozzi-Froebelian principles within the operations of the 
Elementary Education Acts? "Why should not school boards here and 
there set apart a few infant schools to begin with, for a certain term of 
years, for the especial purpose of applying the principles of the Kinder- 
garten still more thoroughly to our national system? Why should not 
such experiments receive the sanction of Government, and be judged 
under special instructions to Inspectors to consider them in the light of 
the educational principles they involve rather than by the trick of "pass- 
es," already beginning to be found fallacious in guaging the ultimate 
worth of educational institutions? 

In 1877 Mr. Scoltock, H. ]\I. Inspector for the Birmingham district, 
spoke of the educational work in elementary schools generally in the fol- 
lowing strain: — 

.... "It will be seen that the inspector and his assistants agree in 
thinking that the teaching has become mechanical rather than intelligent; 
that the school is valued rather by the number of 'passes' and largeness 
of the grant; that attempts are being made to reduce teaching to a dry 
matter of statistics, and to drive children in a hackneyed road, instead of 
developing their intelligence and gently guiding their faculties. More- 
over, to teachers themselves this comparison of averages is most unfair. 
An idle and slippery master in a well-to do neighborhood, if aided by 
clever assistants, may show glorious results without doing a hour's real 
work; whereas, in a neighborhood thronged by the careless and tiie vicious, 
another may work the very life out, and his results will show but a 
wretched percentage." 

Under the London Board a staff is supplied at the rate of an average of 
30 children to a pupil-teacher, and 60 to an assistant; but practically a 
pupil-teacher is expected to teach 40, and an assistant 70 infants. To 
people interested in the education qiiestion it must appear especially unde- 
sirable that children under six years should be educated in such masses; 
and although a State system can at the best offer but a poor substitute for 
the divinely-appointed means for the young child's education, the family, 
surely it would be well for the controllers of our national educational 
system to consider whether there is not some limit to legitimate divergence 
from the natural conditions of child life. A teacher with from 60 to 70 
children must, in self-defence, allow the least possible scope for individu- 
ality to assert itself; the personal links between children and teacher are 
weakened; the whole character of her intercourse with her children 
changes ; uniformity, drill, a superficial order (the elements of which are 
almost entirely physical) must be maintained. 



KINDERGARTEN WORK IN UNITED STATES. 



PIONEERS IN IMPROVED CHILD CULTURE. 

Our readers are not unfamiliar with the subjects and methods 
of elementary instruction pursued in the Dame Schools, District 
Schools, and Common Schools generally, as described by pupils 
and teachers in the same about the beginning of this century.* 
We have given elsewhere the history of Infant Schools, and the 
establishment of the Primary School, as the first grade of public 
instruction in several of our chief cities. We add in this chapter 
extracts and suggestions, by one of the most advanced educators 
of the country,! in letters written in 1828 and 1838, which, if 
acted on at the time, would have put the children of the land 
into a course of development, that would at a much earlier day 
have reached the present stage of the Kindergarten. 

THOMAS H. GALLAUDET. 

In March, 1828, Rev. Thomas H. Gallaudet, Principal of the 
American Asylum for Deaf Mutes at Hartford, addressed a letter 
to a friend in Boston, from which the following extracts are taken. 

I have thought, for a long time, that the attention of the public is by 
no means sufficiently directed to the education of children and youth in 
its earliest stages, I mean between the ages of three and eight. You 
know what is doing in England on this subject, at the original instigation 
of the distinguished Mr. Brougham. I am told that there is now two 
hundred infant schools in England, and thjflt a great national society is 
about to be formed with reference to this object. 

•Series of articles in American Jonmal of Education (voIumeB xiii to xxx) on Schools 
as they ivere^ about tlie beginning of this century, by Noah Webster, President 
Hitmiihrey of Amherst Colle";'e, President Day, and Professor Silliman of Yale CoUeire, 
"President Nott, of Union Collece, Dr. Buslinell, Peter Parley (S. G. Goodrich), Ilenrvlv. 
Oliver, J. S. Buckingham. Dr. Darlington, j'nd other pupils and teachers of the District 
and Common Schools in different States. These articles are brought together, as far as 
then published, in volume xxv, and in the editor's monogram, entitled, Historical 
Development of Education in the United States, Issued in 1876. The whole series will he 
reprinted in connection with a History of the original Free or Endowed Grammar 
Schools of Massachusetts and other Colonies, and the Incorporated Academies and 
Public High Schools of later origin. 

tMr. Gallaudet, in 1825, addressed the public through the Connecticut Observer, on a 
Plan of a Seminary foi- the education of instructors of youth, the first elaborated plan of 
a normal school in this country ; in 18-2t) he suggested and assisted in organizing at Hart- 
ford, Conn., one of the earliest Associations for the improvement of common schools ; in 
182", he proposed and assisted in the establishment of an Infant School in Hartford, and 
about the same time in connection with William C. Woodbridge, proposed the establish- 
ment of a Teacher's Seminary in Hartford, one or two years in advance of the Seminary 
of the same name in Andover, Mass.: in 1831 he was elected to the Chair of the Philoso- 
phy of Education in the New York University; in 1835 he was urged to become principal 
of "the Andover Teachers' Seminary; in 1*38 he was invited to take charge of the first 
Stale Normal School of Massachusetts, and in the same year he wag elected Secretary of 
the State Board of Commissioners of Common Schools for Connecticut —See Life in vol. 
I, p. 417-444. 

34 



530 HISTOKICAL DEVELOPMENT OP CHILD CULTUKE. 

Amid all the other projects of doing good, have Christians felt the 
importance of directing greater efforts to the religums as well as intel- 
lectual instruction of quite young children, especially the children of 
the Church, upon an intelligible, rational, and philosophical plan? Will 
not most Christian parents admit, that, to say the least, the education of 
their children till the age of six or seven years is conducted in a very 
loose and desultory way? How few, very few, suitable books, especially 
on religious subjects, are to be found for children of that age, let our 
Sabbath-school teachers tesl'fy. In developing the intellectual and moral 
powers of children, in teaching them language, and in conveying knowl- 
edge, especially religious truth, to their minds, is it not of importance to 
begin right? 

May not great improvements in the earliest stages of education be 
reasonably anticipated? Ought not great efforts to be made to have them 
introduced? 

I have been teaching infantile minds for ten years, daily and labo- 
riously. I think I see clearly how I could bring the results of my expe- 
rience to bear upon the minds of children who can hear and speak, so as 
to produce most important effects in the early stages of education, and 
also upon the preparation of suitable books, especially of a religious kind, 
which would greatly, under the blessing of God, promote the early growth 
of piety in the human heart. What an aid would such books afford both 
to parents and teachers! 

1. Suppose, in a city like Boston, some ten or twelve families should 
unite and establish a private school for the instruction of their children 
under six or seven years of age, and I should take charge of it for one 
year, devoting to it about five hours a day, and having sufficient vacation 
for relaxation. 

In such a school and in such a time I could apply the principles which 
we have found so successful in teaching the deaf and dumb, and devise, 
arrange, and mature, a new, and permit me to say, more rational mode of 
instruction tlian any now in operation. I speak of a private school, 
because 1 had rather begin in a noiseless way, and have the best opportu- 
nity of being able to present to the public, with a good degree of confi- 
dence, a system of instruction for such young minds. 

2. At the end of the year, or sooner if all things were ready, I would 
show the results of my efforts and I am sanguine enough to believe that 
they would both interest and surprise all intelligent and benevolent minds. 
I would then propose to enlarge the school to any practicable extent, and 
make it a permanent model school for the education of young children, 
on philosophical and evangelical principles. 

3. In such a school, made if thought best a public one, or continued as 
a private one for the education of the children of the higher classes of 
society, persons might easily be qualified to diffuse the system pursued, 
to any extent, throughout our country, both among the children of the 
poor, in public establishments, and among those of the more affluent in 
private ones. What good might thus be done, when you consider the 
whole youthful population of the country! 

4. At first, I should expect to devote myself personally to the actual 
details of teaching, having an assistant, however, who, by becoming 
familiarly acquainted with my mode of instruction, would be qualified to 
aid iu the contemplated enlargement of the school. 

5. Eventually, by training up suitable assistants, I should expect to be 
released from many of the details of teaching, having still the constant 
and daily oversight of the school, bui thus finding leisure to prepare books 
for such little children, which, being the results of actual experience, 
and being tested among my own pupils, would possess many and great 
advantages for being used in other similar schools, in Sabbath-schools, 
and in families. 

6. Such a school should eventually be located in a healthful and pleas- 
ant part of the city, having ample play-grounds for the children, and my 
own residence, if possible, forming a part of the general establishment. 



mSTOKICAL DEVELOPMENT OF CHILD CULTURE. 53 1 

7. Do not think me chimerical ; but I must go still further — the field of 
enterprise opens wide before me. Connected with the permanent model 
school, and in the same or a contiguous building, should be " An Athe- 
nasiun of Juvenile Literature. " The funds, small in amount, necessary to 
carry it into effect should be raised by shares in stock, entitling each 
stockholder to its advantages. Here I would have collected all the books 
published in our own country, in England, and in France, or, at any rate, 
most of them, for the use of children in the early stages of education, 
together with all the practical treatises on this subject. Copies of all 
books published in our own country would, I have no doubt, be cheer- 
fully furnished gratis. I would also have all the ingenious apparatus and 
contrivances employed in the instruction of children here collected. 
Such an AthenaBum would exhibit all that is doing in this interesting 
department of education; it would be a source of great gratification and 
improvement to parents, to teachers, and to all interested in the subject; 
it would furnish many valuable books for republication ; and it would 
aft'ord me a great deal of valuable information with regard to still fur- 
ther improvements in the model school, and in the preparation of school 
books. 

8. Have patience still. I would have connected with the establish- 
ment a "Child's Museum," containing objects calculated not onlj^ to 
gratify the curiosity of little folks, but also furnishing the means of con- 
versing with them on subjects which, without such objects, it would be 
very difiicult to explain intelligibly to them. Such a museum would be 
of immense advantage to the model school. It would receive ample 
donations from the benevolent; and by admitting the public at suitable 
stated times, at a moderate charge, would stipport itself. I should be 
willing to undertake it at my own risk. 

9. Once more, and I have done. Should I go to Boston or elsewhere, 
in the providence of God, for such objects, I would propose to the church 
to which I should attach myself, to take the children of the members of 
the church, and of such of "the society as would wish to unite with them 
on the Sabbath, and have a little (or perhaps it would be a large) congre- 
gation of youth under ten or twelve years of age, with whom I would 
pray, and to whom I would preach, in a manner suited to their capacity. 
What an interest would thus be excited in their minds, instead of that 
tediousness which they feel in attending, as they now do, on services 
which they cannot understand! Would not such a plan, if successfully 
carried into effect, be worthy of being adopted extensively? 

You see how I would thus become the children's teacher and friend 
and spiritual guide. Work enough for a life, if Providence should afford 
strength. In all that I have said I beg to be considered as giving no 
pledge. Such plans I have revolved in my own mind, and now suggest 
them to yours. 

The suggestions of this letter are all -in the line of educational 
development in which Froebel was at the time moving in Keil- 
hau. They were not acted on, at least in the way proposed by 
Mr. Gallaudet. He soon after resigned his position in the Amer- 
ican Asylum, and devoted his rare ability in child culture to con- 
tributions to religious juvenile literature,* and to the superintend- 
ence of a school for little children in his own family. 

In 1838, in reply to inquiries addressed to him by a committee 
of the Primary School Board of Boston, charged with the estab- 
lishment of a Model School for children between the ages of four 
and seven years, Mr. Gallaudet wrote as follows: 

* Child's Book on the Soul, Child's Book of Bil)lo Stories. Youth's Book on Natural 
Theology, Child's Picture Defining and Reading Book, and Mother's Primer. 



\ 



532 msTORicAL development of child culture. 



"We have much yet to learn in the department of juvenile education. 
Had I the care of such a school, I should feel this deeply. I would adopt 
pertinaciously no particular system, but commence with a few simple 
principles of procedure, and preserve as much as possible the features of 
the family state in the school ; feel my way along, moulding things into 
shape gradually, altering, amending, and abolishing, when necessary, 
and slowly maturing what I might hope, at the expiration of some four 
or five years, to call a model school. It seems to me that everything 
depends on him whom you get as the principal of such an institution. 
He should be a man of piety, simplicity, childlike and Christianlike ; a 
man of prayer, of practical, everyday, self-denying benevolence, who 
loves to study his Bible, imbibe its spirit, and to make it his constant 
counselor and guide. He should have genuine originality of mind, and 
the power of investigation; be wedded to no system, neither his own or, 
to one of others; apt to learn as well as to teach; ready to hear sugges- 
tions, and to profit by them; speculative, yet practical; enthusiastic, yet 
cautious; and, above all, be able to enter into the very souls of children, 
to think as they think, and to feel as they feel, loving them as if he were 
their father, and winning them by his looks, voice, manners, and conversa- 
tion to love him and to confide in him. He should have had experience 
in teaching, the more the better, and have acquired a tact of managing 
young pupils, but without anything pedagogically stiff, or formally dog- 
matic, or unyielding. 

Find such a man, or such a woman, and it seems to me that you will 
have gone through more than half of your labor. Give such an individual 
the results of your inquiries, and your general directions as to i'he plan 
(as simple as possible, and susceptible of continual modification, as the 
light of experience shall be cast upon it,) that is to be pursued. Treat 
him with great confidence; let him feel the laudable ambition of himself 
devising and maturing, under your auspices and supervision, but without 
dictating the precise course which he is to follow, what may at length 
truly deserve the high appellation of a model primary school, worthy of 
universal praise anrl imitation. Excuse the freedom with which I give 
you these terse hints. 

While I think on the one hand that the actual amount of book-study- 
ing to be pursued in the school which you propose should be compara- 
tively small, that the-re should be no pushing forward the young and 
tender minds in it, in a way to make them precocious, or the school a 
wonder for the early attainments it can exhibit, and everything should be 
done to cultivate to the highest point of perfection bodily health, cheer- 
fulness, elastic buoyancy of happy feeling, pious and benevolent affec- 
tions, tastCj good habits and manners of the children, and to impart the 
knowledge suited to their age and capacity; on the other hand, while I 
contemplate what the education (using the word in its comprehensive 
import) of a child is from the age of four to that of seven, and the pow- 
erful influence for good which a model school for such children, judi- 
ciously conducted, might exert throughout our whole country, I feel 
anxious that the head of it should be worthy of the elevated station he 
would be called to fill. 

But can all our primary schools hope to have such an individual to 
conduct them? That cannot be expected; but you are to mature a sys- 
tem; you are to hold up a model; you hope to set a great moral ma- 
chinery in motion, on a somewhat new and improved principle. You 
need no common mind to be your successful agent in doing this. 

Find this mind, and look to God for His guidance and blessing, and 
the rest of your work will be easy. 

[The Model School was established with "the individual " and "mind," 
referred to by Mr. Gallaudet, left out, and although it did much good, 
this good was in the line of class instruction, and not in that of individ- 
ual development — the harmonious growth of the entire human being by 
natural, methods. — Ed.] 



THE KINDEEGARTEN IN NOEMAL TEATNINa. 

Causes of Failure and Subsequent Success in the New York Normal College. 



XiETTER OF THOMAS HUNTER, i'H. D., President. 

Utterly disgusted with the barbarous system of restraint, ignorantly 
called "discipline," in vogue in some of the primary schools of the city, 
I had resolved, on the establishment of the Normal College, that our 
pupil-teachers should be trained to a higher and better knowledge of 
child nature. With this object in view I carefully studied the life, the 
labors, and the system of the immortal Froebel, and found in his Kinder- 
garten the true foundation of all correct teaching — a deep, broad, natural 
foundation, capable of sustaining the most solid superstructure. 

The key-note of the Kindergarten is the natural activity of the child, 
which is utilized for purposes of bodily, moral, and mental growth. The 
child needs physical exercise. Play is a necessity of its nature. The 
simple but profoundly philosophical mind of Froebel seized this necessity 
and turned it into a powerful instrument of culture. He adapted and 
gave to the world the celebrated games which are now amusing, develop- 
ing, and instructing thousands of children all over the world. 

Any one who has observed the habits of children can scarcely avoid 
the conclusion that man is born with an instinctive desire to destroy; 
and that "the natural state of man is war." Every parent realizes this 
to his cost. The child delights to pick things to pieces, to pluck up 
flowers, to break shrubs, to rob birds' nests, to smash the eggs, to quarrel, 
to fight, and to be, in fact, a most cruel little animal. It takes the con- 
stant vigilant care of a wise mother to check and cure these natural pro- 
pensities. And hence, long before Froebel's time, lettered blocks and 
other agencies were employed to minister to the child's natural desire to 
construct and destroy. It may be worthy of notice that while the child 
seems pleased with the work of building his blocks into an imaginary 
house or church, his joy is unbounded and his laugh the loudest Avhen 
he destroys the work of his own hands and beholds the little edifice a 
heap of ruins. Culture has done wonders in the vegetable kingdom, 
more certainly than it has done in the animal; for the reason, periiaps, 
that the former passively submits, while the latter actively resists. With 
all the barbarian races, as far back as history reaches, destructiveness 
has been their characteristic ; and wherever man has become civilized he 
has become a builder. Constructivcness has been the visible sign of his 
civilization. Destructiveness is natural activity viciously exercised ; con- 
structivcness is natural activity cultivated and employed for beneficent 
purposes; and this truth is the basis of the Kindergarten, of the weaving, 
and making and building, and instructive amusements which will ere 
long work a great reform in professional teaching. 

The common schools were established to conserve the state. This is 
the only logical reason for their existence. If the state could be con- 



634 KINDERGARTEN IN NORMAL TRAINING. 

served without them, it has no more right to supply education than it 
has to supply paintings, statuary, or any other expensive luxury. If all 
people were wealthy a common school system would be unnecessary. 
But since the great majority are poor, and struggling for a bare subsist- 
ence, sin e the condition .of orphanage and half-orphanage compels 
children at a very tender age to go forth into the world to fight for exist- 
ence, since millions of parents are ignorant, or depraved, or selfish, and 
either will not or can not give their children an education, the state must 
save itself from destruction by maintaining a system of common schools. 
Charity schools or free schools will flourish in a monarchy where society 
is divided into castes, and where young people are taught "to order 
themselves lowly and reverently before their betters," but will not thrive 
in a republican atmosphere where there are no ' ' betters " — at least before 
the law. In a republic the common school is a common necessity. But 
the common school is far from perfect. Teachers have long known and 
pointed out its imperfections, not for the purpose of injuring but of im- 
proving it. In doing this we have furnished the enemies of the systeni 
the very technical terms which enabled them to assail it, and which, but 
for us, they would never have known. Did the "citizen and tax-payer" 
ever reflect on what it costs to hang one of these neglected waifs? From 
the policeman to the prison, with all its wardens and keepei-s, through 
the court with its judges, prosecuting officers, and costly appliances, to 
the sheriff, who finally hurls the wretch into eternity, the cost is simply 
enormous ; and the money, if expended on education, would give a col- 
legiate education to a dozen orphans. In the ratio in which we multiply 
schools we diminish crime, which, after all, is the heaviest bm-den on the 
"citizen and tax-payer." "We ai'e aware that a snobbish Anglicised 
American, more fitted for the region of St. James than for the land of 
Jefferson, has asserted that the common school is the nursery of crime; 
but as he did not give one particle of proof, and as his articles were full 
of mistakes and redolent of Tory prejudices, we must still adhere to our 
statement, and insist upon the multiplication of schools as a mere matter 
of economy. But the schools, to be truly economical, must be thoroughly 
eflacient. The system must be thoroughly graded, commencing with the 
Kindergarten and passing up to the high and normal school. This gives 
a head, trunk, limbs, and feet — a completely organized body. 

Deeply impressed with the necessity of a Kindergarten in the "model 
school " connected with the Normal College, I requested the Committee 
in charge to employ an experienced Kindergartner, and to expend the 
necessary amount of money in the purchase of material. The request 
was granted, Froebel's games were procured, and Dr. Douai and his 
daughter employed. In justice to both it must be stated that they proved 
themselves excellent teachers, and that the subsequent failure was no 
fault of theirs. If Dr. Douai was to blame at all, it was because he did 
not insist upon the first essential requisite of success; he did not insist 
upon having children of the right age ; or if he did insist, his insistence 
availed him nothing. His first step was fatal. He began the Kindergarten 
with children seven, eight, nine, ten, and eleven years old. Unfortunately 
the College was nearly half a mile from the "Model School"; so that I 



KINDERGARTEN IN NORMAL TRAINING. 635 

found it difficult to give Dr. Douai that aid and'support -whicli he needed. 
The principal of the "Model School " had no faith in it and ridiculed the 
idea of "teaching children to play." She took special pains to inform 
the different members of the Committee on the College that the introduc- 
tion and maintenance of the Kindergarten was a useless waste of the 
public money. It should be remembered that, at that time (1870), Froe- 
bel's system was comparatively new to America, and that its principles 
were but imperfectly comprehended, even by the majority of eminent 
teachers. Thus failed my first attempt to establislx the Kindergarten. 

Although I must, in justice, accept my fair share of the blame, the 
failure was not without its benefits. It was to me a profitable lesson. It 
showed me the proper conditions under which the Kindergarten could be 
made a success. These conditions are as follows: 

1. An able and thoroughly trained Kindergartner. 

2. A uniform class of children of the average age of four years. 

3. A full supply of the requisite material. 

4. A principal teacher in full sympathy with the Kindergarten. 

An American, or at least a lady with whom English is the mother 
tongue, will succeed most easily among American children. A conti- 
nental European may be abler and more experienced; bnt the slightest 
accsnt is an impediment, for one of the principal aims of the teacher is to 
cultivate language and harmony. The true Kindergartner should be 
able and willing to perform all the functions of a wise educated mother. 

Accordingly when the "Model School," now the Training Department, 
was transferred in 1874 to the new building erected for its use, and con- 
nected with the College by a covered causeway, one of its critic teachers, 
thoroughly adapted by nature and education for the work, completely 
mastered the principles and practice of the Kindergarten under Mrs. 
Kraus, and having been promoted by the Committee to the position of 
Kindergartner, she subsequently introduced the system with the most 
satisfactory and gratifying results. Notwithstanding the fact that we use 
the Kindergarten as an experimental class for the pupil-teachers of the 
College, the demand for admission is so great that it is no exaggeration 
to say that we could form ten classes, had we the necessary accommo- 
dations. 

The question naturally arises, what is the effect of the kindergarten 
instruction on the children when they reach the higher grades of the 
school? The effect has been tested by comparing them with children 
who have not had the benefits of the Kindergarten ; and we have invaria- 
bly found that the children trained in the Kindergarten are brighter, 
quicker, and more intelligent; and that especially in all school work, such 
as writing and drawing, requiring muscular power and flexibility in the 
wrist and fingers, they pre-eminently excel. 

There should be a Kindergarten class in every primary school in the 

land. Of course the children's garden in which to perform their games, 

in great cities or towns, is out of the question. Children play in the 

basement, in the garret, in the nursery. How many children in New 

* York play in a garden? The children in the primary schools can use 



630 KINDKUQARTJCN IN NOUMAL TRAINING. 

the play-grouiul and the class-room, and have ample accommodation for 
many of the practices of the Kindcrgartou. 

One great benefit to be derived from the Kindergarten has not been 
sufllciently dwelt upon— one that should occupy the attention of the 
patriot and the political economist— and that is that C/w? prinripleH and 
jtractlce of tJie Kinderf/artcn unMmckmdy create and foster a tanie for 
mechatUcal trades. In thc!S(i days, when the great majority of yotnig men 
seek the counting-liouse and the learncfd ijrofession, in order to escape 
manual labor, it becomes a nuilter of great importance to extend a system 
of instruction which inculcates a love and respect for work and the work- 
ing-man. All the little songs about the farmer, the cooper, the carpenter, 
etc., while cultivating the ear for harmony, insensibly lead the childrcu 
to form a high opinion of all industrial occupations. 

The poor, and especially the poor in great citit-s, most need the refining 
and ennobling influence of the Kindergarten. Among this class, the 
■wisdom, the kindness, the care of an educated motherly teacher {i.e. the 
Kindergartner) could accomplish the greatest amount of good. She can 
inoidd them at the most plastic age, and thus i)revent a great deal of 
future crime. But it is impossible to do justice to this part of the subject 
in a short article like the present. 

The pupil-teachers of the Normal College learn through the Kinder- 
garten a great deal of child nature whi(;h they could not otherwise learn; 
and although they find no Kindergarten classes in the public schools to 
t<(ach, they enter upon their work with a loftier idea of their duties and 
responsibilities, and with a broader humanity for the errors and miseries 
of their fellow beings, 

NOTE KY TIIR EDITOn. 

The time will soon come, we trust, when the Kindergarten will have 
a Transition Class composed of children between the ages of five a&d 
seven years, and the Primary School will modify its classification and 
methods, so as to continue the work of develoimient begun in the Kin- 
dergarten by further ai)plications of Froebel's nu^Jiod. 

In the State Normal School building in Baltimore, and under the 
supervision of Prof. M. A. Newell, the prineii)al and state superintend- 
ent, a training class and Kindergarten was conducted by Miss Aiuia W. 
Barnard, a graduate of Miss Burritt in 1870-80. The four ladies who irrad- 
natcd in 1880 are now (conducting Kindergartens in Baltimore and Wash- 
ington. The success, both of the training class and the Kindergarten, 
was unciueslioned, and the |>rinciple and methods of Froebel's system 
Prof. Newell holds in the highest estimation as the basis of all child cul 
ture and normal training ; but the reduced appropriation for the support 
of the state Normal School prevented his continuing the work .so auspi- 
ciously begun, mainly by private resources [donation by Mrs. Elizabeth 
Thompson]. 

A Training Class and Model Kindergarten have been established in the 
State Normal School at. Oshkosh, in Wisconsin, in the State Normal 
School of Miimesota at Winona, and in the Oswego Training School, by 
Prof. Sheldon. 



% REMINISCENCES OF KIN BERG AliTEN WORK. 



BY IttltH. MAItlA KKAUH UOBLTU. 



Addressed to Dr. Henry Harnard.* 
In compliance with your request to communicate my experience 
in Kiii(lorg;irten work, as well as my preparations for the same, I 
begin at the beginning with some particulars of home and school 
training, which you think was better than any special course that 
a)ul(l have been projected Vjy Fro-.bel himself. 

I am a native of Ilagenow, in the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg- 
Schwerin, where I was born Nov. 8, 1830. 

Dr. Ernst Boelte, my father, the oldest of thirteen children, was 
by profession a lawyer, and for forty-six years discharged the duties 
of judge and local magistrate. On his side we were descended from 
Admiral Peter LeFort, who took a prominent part in Russian mari- 
time affairs under Peter the Great. My father's immediate ancestors 
were in the public service, and his Aunt Fanny Tarnow was well 
known as a popular writer, as is Amcly also his sister. My 
mother was a daughter of Hofrath August Khlcrs. Her family 
included many professional men ; and with such large connections 
our home was, from my earliest recollections, the ceftter of literary 
meetings, musical entertainments, and dinner, tea, and coffee parties, 
which naturally carried along with them much social cultivation. 

DOMESTIC TRAINING. 

Although Kindergartens were not yet in existence, the occupations 
which Frujbel has systematized in the new education, were in requisi- 
tion in the family nurture of our household. Building with blocks, 
tablet-laying games, form-laying with sticks and seeds, were much 
practiced. Beads were used for counting and inventing patterns, 
either by threading them, or by pressing them into wax. Baskets 
were woven of rushes, grasses, and straw, sometimes intermingled 

Extract from Dr. Barnard'H letter; 

"I W.fj; you will jot down ail tlioHO Intcrcptlng parllcnlare which yon wcrcf bo kind a) 
to narrate to me of your own early home, and Belf-trainltiK, an well ao of your tpecia' 
studies of Fncbel's prliicipleB and iiiotliod at Hainburf,', and your own veritable Kinder 
garlen practice before you ever heard of Fni-bei, an well aH after. They at once conflrir 
the BaKacity of the (jreat inaHter of child culture, by Mhowiii^j Idhi nyBteni to bo In accord 
ance witli nature, and indicate the typo of character, education, and trainhifj required fo! 
the hi^hcHt nuccciHH In Kinderfjarten wori<. I doubt if Frwbel could have projected i 
apecial cournc more admirably fitted than tliat whicli, in the providence of Ood, yon pur 
sued. Such RemiulDceucuis as youru are full of LatercHt and loHtructiou tu all educators. 

(537) 



538 REMINISCENCES OF KINDERGARTEN WORK. 

with ribbons. Forms were perforated and sewn in colored silkg. 
What now is called " mat-weaving," we practiced with worsteds on a 
wooden frame, with narrow ribbons and in leather. Certain forms 
were folded from the square and oblong piece of paper. The scis-,"?* 
Bors were used for cutting out various useful and ornamental forms „ 
in paper and cloth. Card modeling was a charming resource during 
the long Avinter evenings. Drawing, and also modeling, was much 
practiced with potter's-clay, wax, — and on baking day. The dolls 
were not forgotten. I had twenty-one dolls, and a pumpkin, when I 
could have it, which was dressed like a baby, and the clothes 
for this large family I learned to make myself. We had a little 
kitchen, and learned to cook many dishes in play. My mother 
was our guide and friend in all this ; she made the nursery the 
pleasantest room in the house. Each of us children owned a little 
garden, where we were taught to grow various vegetables and flowers. 
In our yard we had various apparatus for gymnastics, a see-saw, a 
climbing-pole, a balancing-board ; besides there was found a tame 
deer that often lay in one kennel with the large dog; also cows, 
horses, a goat, a sheep, rabbits, guinea-pigs, a porcupine, an owl, 
and a stork. We had more liberty than other children, and our 
family, though aristocratic, was often called " the small Republic." 
Our parents were our best friends, and good companions, although 
we stood in a little awe of our father. The latter told us in contin- 
uous evening^ tiie story of Robinson Crusoe ; these evenings were 
most instructive, and ended with the treat of " roasting potatoes as 
Robinson Crusoe was said to have done." 

I began to learn to read with a gentleman teacher when four 
years old, in a class of twelve little boys and girls, all about my age. 
Only one hour daily was given to this, to writing and arithmetic. 
Another hour was given to knitting and sewing, and a third hour 
for dancing the " Minuet " with my two elder brothers and sister, 
under a dancing master ; this dance we had finally to execute " en 
costume," at a ball. From my sixth to seventh year I jcAied a 
small class of two boys and three girls, for three hours daily, when 
we were taught the following subjects by one of the first clergymen 
of the city, viz. : four hours per week were devoted to Bible-stories ; 
geography intermingled with universal and natural History ; German 
reading and writing ; learning by heart of poetry and hymns. Piano 
lessons I received from the Cantor of the church. Besides this, my 
brothers and sisters and I, as well as several other children of the 
so-called upper class, joined daily in the afternoons one hour in the 
instruction given to the poor children, thus teaching us early not tc 



EEMINISCENCES OP KINDERGARTEN WORK, 539 

measure ourselves with others according to rank, pretty clothes, 
good home, etc., but rather according to our own worth. When I 
was seven years old my father engaged a special teacher for us, who 
lived in our family, namely a Candidatus Theologite, Mr. Massmann, 
who was named to us " as a man who never in all his life received a 
punishment." This gentleman stayed three years with us. We 
received instruction in the morning and afternoon ; Mr. M. superin- 
tended also our preparations for the next day, and gave us piano 
and singing lessons, he being a first-class musician, both vocally and 
on the piano. My mother also was a pianist, and my father, besides 
the piano, played the flute and the violin. Latin and French were 
commenced, mathematics, universal history, geography, arithmetic, 
drawing, and natural history were taught. In our daily excursions 
we were introduced to the wonders of nature ; he accompanied us 
to the blacksmith's, joiner's, turner's, weaver's, baker's, pottery, etc., 
and we had thus most practical instructive lessons ; on returning 
home, we made experiments. Mr. M. was a good gymnast, and 
became also our teacher in this. Skating we were taught, — sleigh- 
ing, a snow-man, and snow-balling belonged to the pleasures in win- 
ter. Exercise on the balancing-board and target-shooting were 
among the pleasures in summer. Mr. M. left us, on receiving a 
government appointment. My second brother and I then were sent 
to the " Candidaten Schule," i.e., a school for boys and girls, con- 
ducted by two theologians, where we continued our studies com- 
menced under Mr. M. In the afternoons I accompanied my eldest 
sister, for one hour's instruction, to the Rector, who imparted to us 
chiefly general knowledge, universal history, and literature. 

In 1848 the great Revolution came, when my father, who 
had been chief magistrate hitherto, retired. The entire event made, 
necessarily, a deep and lasting impression on our young minds. We 
moved, by invitation of the Grand Duke, to the summer residence, 
Ludwigslust, — another great event in our young lives. My sisters 
and I now were sent to a private girls' school, or rather " Class," 
which occupied us only for three hours in the mornings ; this class 
had eighteen girls, in two divisions, and was conducted by a true 
pedagogue, Director Wachtler, and further instruction was given by 
two theologians, Pastor Dankert and Rector Willbrandt. The 
instruction comprised elementary branches, physics, mathematics, 
astronomy, botany, composition, literature. We made excursions 
with our teachers, and often in the evening we studied the stars with 
Pastor D., and were taught how to make various apparatus nec- 
essary for our instruction. In the afternoon French was studied with 



640 IIKMINISCKNCE8 OP KINDICIUIARTKN WoUK. 

a Indy tciiu^lici', and T Ic-anicd to mm and iiiako fancy work. Piano 
loHHonH and drawin;^ was Htudicd undtir niastoru. On Saturday aftor- 
noons a I'roHtKHor of tJio Fino ArtH, a f'riond of our family, took mo 
to tlio Art. (ilaliiiry of llio Grand Ducal caHtlc, which I couHidcrud, 
younj; art I was, ono of the ^rcalcHt treats. Tho rest of tlio time I 
dovolcd to my UoUh, twenty-ono in nuud)cr, tho largest boing two 
foct \(>u<r, tlio snialhist ono inch ; th(iir clothcH liad to bo mended, 
washed, and ironed; tlio dolls' hous(^, eoiisistiiig of a parlor, dining- 
room, IxMl-room, kitchen, ])antry, had lo ho kept in order. A ycjunger 
sister of uuwv., usually called my twin-sister, l)ecauHO of our great 
resenihlanco to each other, asked mo oftctn to j)lay loud with my 
dolls,' HO that hIio coidd play the same with her dolls. I lived jjarlly 
in fairy-land ; I saw fairies, lile, wonders in (iaeh (lower — among tho 
Htones, insiKrtH, etc., which made mo tho center of my little friends, 
for, as they said, " I could tell such pn^lty stories." Once (nieh wcick 
we cooktwl a "dolls' dinn(!r; " or we invited our friends, and vut all 
wero cooks, prepaiing our own meal under the supervision of an 
adult. In n>y fathtir's study I had a placui wla^re I was allowed to 
])r(f))are for my h^ssons. I had to perform cttrtain little honsehokl 
•lulies; for instance, I llltered tho CoHee for my father and mother 
in the morning, prepared our lunch(>on for H(OiooI, and, wh(>nev('r at 
leisure, had to take care of n\y yoinigest brother, a mere babe, who 
showed a spi^cial airection for mo and I also for him. Thus I grew 
to bo fourteen years old, when our elass broke up, the teacherB re- 
ceiving gov(!rnment appointUKwits. Many diversions interrupted our 
daily routine; a parly, dancing lessons, a game, or play rather, in 
1h(^ garden of one of the parents of the girls of our class. Con- 
jointly wo made walks in tln^ beautiful park, or went skating, etc. 
A new girls' school was opened, and our work Ixu-ame V(U'y hard ; 
for from eight to twelves and IVom t\v() to four o'clock, we r(!ceived 
instruction, besides the preparatory work at honie, which occupied 
US about two hours more. I nmst say, 1 did enjoy this, l)ut at my 
age it provi'd to be too stivtu-e work. French conversation and 
(Jermau WHS ono of tl»e chief Htndies ; also (Jtu'nuin grammar, geog- 
raphy, universal history, natural history, arithmetic (algebra), geom- 
etry, mathtiuiatics, natural philosophy (physics), literature, drawing, 
singing, composition, sewing and fancy work, Hiblo instruction, reci- 
tation. Among our teachers were again two clergymen, the Director 
A<keiiuan of tho teachers' sominary, and two other teachers from the 
Hame Instituto. 

When tifteon years old my health broke completely down, and I 
had to give up school, having held the head place among my class- 



IlRMrNISCRNrcKH OK ia>fDKIlOAnTI';N WOKIC. r, 1 ] 

vnnio.H for yciirn. Ahoul, lliis tiino my f;i(,li(;r was (ippoinlcd I)y IIki 
^«)V(!riirii('.iit,, ,Iml<^(! and (Jliii C Maf^iHtraU; <A' atiollicr city, and wy 
Jiud (,o nuivt'. \,\\i;n:. I vviih H<Mit, lo Llio f^'wW Hcliool, but wus (liH^iiHtcd 
with it.H Hlaiidard, u\iiniiff;uu'.i\i., and Hpirit, aM<l tlicnrforo did n)»t con< 
tiniK! to a(|(!nd. I wan Hont to llanilfur;;, to the, lionio oC ono of 
tlid first patrician fainilicH, tlic head of wiiicli liad Ixmh a (fllow- 
Htnd<Mit with niy f'atlKtr at tlio IJnivcrHJty of (ioltiii^^cn. I Hpcnt 
al)ont H(!Von uionlliH in tiii.H family, the clc/^ant HurroiMidin;rr< of which 
wcro refining; in thornsolvoH. Jn oiuj lar^c, liall-roorri I conhl nit hy 
tho hour; tlui walls wcra WucaI with yciihtw marhl(!, one Hi(h) hcin<^ 
u 8in;^h; inaHHiv(! lookiii^-f^laHH, and tlio hordcjr ahovo htiiii^^ a cast of 
Olio of ThorwaldKcn'H ni!i,Ht(!r-pi«!C»)H. I'ho Htair-ctiiHo in tliis lutiiHo 
waH mad(j of wiiite inarhh!, and ilH railing (jf hri^^ht hniHH. AncMlicr 
room was called " tho ChinoHO room," IIh walln hcjinj^ huii;^ with 
heavy yellow Hilk, and the fnrnitnn! was covcn^d witli the Hanie, 
iKianlifid (JhineHc; ornarmtnlH hein;^ everywhere. Another room wan 
a "fine library," another " the picture f^allery," et(;, Tlie yoim^(;Ht 
danj^lit(!r waH of my own n^(!. 

VV<! Htudie.d drawing, IJible btenitiire, pi;iiK), n.'i.tnr:i! pheiiom(;im 
and h(;;i.lth ; in nuxh-lin^ I r<!ceiv(Ml from the eldcHt dniif^hlcrr my 
firnt ideaH. Ilavin;; attained the aj^e, of Hixteen I returned lionu;, wlniro 
i continn<;r| to Htiidy by mynelf in a bttle Htudio asHi^^iMtd to ni«;. I 
t^M»k uj) tlH! following Hnbjectrt in nsf^idar r)rde-r ; IJe<;k«!r*H IJnivcirHal 
IliHtory, IJiif^ar'H Geography, literatnn;, arithinetJ(;, drawin;^, nniwic. I 
was further inil,iat<!d in dreHH-makinj^, togcttJier with four young 
friondH of minr;, under a r(!g(dar (bcsH-maker, and also fimcy-work, 
the art of cooking, houwdnJd management, Krench, etc. A great 
deal of information was rcccivwl fnjm my father, in c<jnv(!rHatiori 
during a daily, twf) hour's walk, or by diHcuHsions at home. Our 
reading matter were biographi(;H, geographi(\'tl books, historical on<H, 
<;tc. My fiither made it for all of us a ride, with only rare exceptions, 
that — 

" JCftrly l,o Ix-d, niiil curly to rlco, 
MiiUi;H a iim/i liDiiltliy, wcallliy, and wlfo." 

When r;ightf;f!n y(;ars f)ld I received ntligious insf,rucli(»n by our 
clergyman, and finally was confirmed. After this I was introthiced 
info society, and a happy time began. Tlu! afternoon from two 
till four o'chjck b<;long<;d to UH U> sjteinl just as we liked b(!(U. 
Generally I entertainwl a largo flock of poor chiidrcti on tlir; 
meadow n(.iir our house, and on Satuidays thosr; childntn received a 
pemiy, who during the week had tlatir faces and hands cleiui ; or I 
viHitod the Kinder-und JJcwa/iran$tatt (Cr6cho), and for a while I 



542 EEariNiscENCES of kindergarten wore. 

hoped to be able to assist the old matron ; but she was jealous and 
suspicious, and I had to stop my visits. On Saturdays I distributed, 
for my mother, clothes and food for the poor. My Aunt Amely, the 
oldest sister of my father, a well-known writer, who regards the 
woman's question as her special mission, when once visiting us, broke 
up this careless sort of happiness by her conversation and views 
expressed ; and in consequence I succeeded in receiving permission 
to go to Hamburg, to Froebel's widow, in order to study the Kin- 
dergarten system under her, becoming a member of her family. 
There I came in contact with a class of intelligent people, Avho made 
it their business to devote their time and money to " doing good 
M'ork." Among them were Madame Emilie Wustenfeld, the founder of 
the female Gewerhe Schule (Industrial School) ; Dr. Jessen, now in 
Berlin, the director of the male Gewerbe Schule; Miss Ida Kriiger 
pupil of Friedrich Froebel ; Dr. Wichard Lange, Frau Alwine 
Lange, the daughter of Middendorf and Dr. W. Lange's wife, also 
a pupil of Froebel ; Dx*. Ree, who has done so much for the little 
Israelites of Hamburg ; Theodor Hoffmann, who was so active in re- 
gard to the United Kindergartens of Hamburg, etc. 

I entered two different courses of Kindergarten training under 
Madame Froebel, and attended the seminary for teachers, in which 
Mr. Tiedemann was the professor of general and special pedagogics, 
assisted by five other professors. Whilst with Madame Froebel, 
she published the " Ring-games," in which I became particularly 
interested. 

First Residence in England. 

"When I had finished my course of studies, I went to England, 
not being enabled to work out, in my own home, the ideas received. 
I remember yet the bleak, cold, wet night, when Madame Wustenfeld 
and Madame Ree brought me on board of a little coal steamer that 
went to Hull, I being the only lady passenger. But go I must, or 
the Kindergarten would have been lost to me. And so I was brave, 
not disclosing to any one my trembling heart and failing courage. 
I well remember the storm during our voyage, and how the vessel 
was almost lost among the cliffs. After three days we landed in 
Hull; it was such a sunny, beautiful Sunday morning, the bells 
ringing cheerily, that I regained all my courage. From Hull I 
went to JManchester. Not understanding the English language, I 
was often greatly embarrassed, but met with so much kindness, that 
finally everything turned out well. In Manchester I went to 
Madame Rouge's house, where I was expected, finding a warm wel- 



REMINISCENCES OF KINDERGARTEN WORK. 543' 

come. Madame Ronge had been invited to Manchester by some of 
the prominent famihes, in order to lecture on the New Education, 
and to orjjanize a Kindergarten. She was a pupil of Froebel, when 
the latter was in Hamburg in 1849, and a sister of the late Mrs. 
Carl Schurz. 

Madame Ronge sent me after a while to London, to assist in her 
Kindergarten and school. I was forced to learn English in order to 
conduct the Kindergarten, and also teach part of the advanced 
classes, as well as the young ladies in training. Here I became 
acquainted with Charles Dickens, Arnold Ruge, Carl Blind, G. 
Kinkel, Angelike von Lagerstrbra, Ferdinand Freiligrath,* Mazzini, 
Charles Kean and wife, and others. 

When the London Kindergarten was broken up because of Mr. 
and Mrs. Ronge returning to the continent, I was left to my own 
resources, although my work up to this time had been " without 
price," the children being from among the poor. The two Misses 
Praetorius, Rosalie and Minna, daughters of an excellent teacher in 
Nassau, near Frankfort-on-the-Main, took charge of the school, the 
Kindergarten proper not being continued. 

I must not omit to say a word about Mr. Borschitzky, who 
was associated wi;h Madame Ronge in her work, and whose original 
and beautiful music places him worthily by the side of Frbbel — as 
inventor, teacher, and friend of the children ; for in his gymnastic 
marches and in his international system of music and song he has 
given a worthy contribution to the Kindergarten system. " Every 
educator," he says, " should be essentially an author, a teacher, and 
a perpetual inventor ; whatever he has to impart to his pupils he 
must bring fi om the bottom of his heart, and balance it well in his 
mind, so as to correspond with his pupil's capacity. The art of 
infant education requires more tact and self-sacrifice than any other 
art." And I also fully agree with him when he says : " As music is 
very conducive to the formation of the child's character, so an extem- 
pore accompaniment, or an accompaniment on a piano-forte out of 
tune, does more harm than good ; the employment even of legal 
dissonances, a< an early age, tends to make the ear less sensitive to 
pure harmony ; and in order not to injure the child's voice, the piano 
must be kept to the standard pitch, so that the children of the 
Kindergarten do not cultivate their voices higher than soprano, and 
not lower than contralto." The Kindergarten-Gymnastics rest on 
the same principle as the German gymnastics ; all parts of the body 

* Two of his daughters — one being a poetess, are married in London to Germ n ^le^• 
chants, whilst his two sons— Wolfgang and Tercy, are mercliauts in America. 



544 REMINISCENCES OP KINDERGARTEN WORK. 

should be developed in the most complete and harmonious manner; 
and also it is of great moral influence. In the Kindergarten only 
*' free exercises " are made, and these are accompanied by music. 
It is a pleasure to move or march rythmically to the sounds of fine 
music. The Kindergarten games rest on the imitation of what we 
perceive in nature or occupations of man : for instances, the fishes, the 
hare, tl.e pigeons, the farmer, the cobbler, the miller, etc. In this 
Frffibel found out the children's secret pleasure; many of the songs 
accompanying these games have popular airs." 

Return home I would not, although my parents desired it greatly ; 
for in that case all my efforts in behalf of the Kindergarten would 
have been in vain. I made the acquaintance of Anna von Bohlen, 
who wanted me to go to Stockwell, but after investigation I found 
the people there not yet ready for the work.* Meanwhile I spent 
all my spare time in the South Kensington Museum and ia the 
British Museum ; in the latter the library was my chief attraction. 

At last I received an offer from the family of the daughter of 
Chief Justice Lord Denman, sister-in-law of Lord Macaulay. I 
was required to teach French, German, Latin, Mathematics, Litera- 
ture, the elementary branches, drawing, modeling, music, calisthenics, 
dancing, dress-making, millinery, cooking, and — Kindergarten. I 
hesitated on account of all these varied requirements. After a 
visit to this family, who owned a beautiful coimtry-seat in Kent, 
I decided to accept, and never regretted having done so; for I 
tnily found a home among highly intelligent, refined people with 
expanded views, and every facility I could wish for in regard to 
carrying out the Kindergarten system. The mother of the family 
became my teacher in English — not in the grammar, but in the 
"natural" way. Sundays she and I read also a chapter from 
the Bible to each other, she the German, / the English. In the 
evenings she often read to us, when we had no company, biographies 
of great and good men and women. I had the fullest swing to carry 
out my Kindergarten ideas with ever so many big and litt'e children ; 
the mothers and children from the neighborhood came to us ; I 
explained and talked to the former and worked with all. The Park 
and garden allowed us to do ideal work. We had a music-room, a 
play-room, a modeling-room, a study -room. Saturday mornings the 
pantry and kitchen were our domain ; we had a special garden and 
animals ; also a cabinet of natural history, which we continually 
increased. Together with the older members of the family, I took 

* Twelve years later, in September, 1874, the British and Foreign School Society en- 
gaged Miss Eleanor Heerwartfor the Infant School of the Stockwell Training ColJege. 



REMINISCENCES OF KINDERGARTEN WORK. 545 

again lessons in (lrawins,.aTifl in the French, Latin, and Italian lan- 
guages ; also in music and dancing (tlie so-called Spanish exercises 
tanght by Madame Michaud). One of the Queen's sergeants gave us 
"drilling lessons." In the winter, on certain evenings we were 
sewing clothes, etc., for the poor, and on Sunday afternoons we visited 
the sick and old, bringing them food or clothes, often reading to them 
from the Bible. 

In 1862 the Misses Praetorius, Heinrich Hoffmann, and myself 
exhibited the Kindergarten material and work together in the Lon- 
don International Exhibition ; each of us had undertiiken to provide 
certain work, and I had my part executed by my little pupils. I 
instructed the older children of the family entirely for several years, 
until the eldest daughter married and the younger children had out- 
grown the Kindergarten age, — and then my love for the Kindeigarten 
allowed me no longer to stay. In this family I often met Mr. James 
Nasmyth, the inventor of the steam-hammer, also well known as 
artist and astronomer. It was a grand treat to visit his most artisti- 
cally arranged house! Both he and his wife were greatly interested 
n the Kindergarten method. We often saw Lord Brougham's family, 
and his grandchildren were year after year my pupils for weeks. 

On going up to London, I found by invitation a home with some 
beloved friends, the family of the well-known physician, Dr. A. 
Henriques. Through them I became acquainted with one of the 
first Jewish families — the A. Goldsmids. Here I met Sir Moses 
Montefiore, the Waleys, Sir David Solomon (once Lord Mayor of 
London). The only daughter of this family became my pupil for 
years, and through her I was introduced in the family of Baron 
Meyer Rothschild. The gi-eater part of my time I devoted, how- 
ever, to Kindergarten work, assisting kindergartners, giving them 
instruction and advice without price, in person and by letter — 'visit- 
ing schools and asylums, and doing charitable work, also taking up 
old and new studies. I took up modeling again under Prof. Miller 
of the South Kensington School of Art, who, conjointly with others, 
tried to persuade me to give up Kindergarten and become an artist. 
But — it was impossible for me to give up what was, so to speak, my 
second nature. My one object was to do the best work possible in 
the Kindergarten, knowing how much mediocrity there was, and 
seeing with dismay how little true Kindergarten education was 
understood. I saw a difficulty arising in not having true, thoroughly- 
educated and trained kindergartners Vv'ho would be able to train and 
leach others. 

In the fall of 1867 I left England and went to Hamburg, where I 
35 



546 EEMINISCENCES OF KINDERGARTEN WORK, 

became acquainted with Madame Johanna Goldschmidt, mother-in-law 
of Jenny Lind, and I was her guest during several months, giving 
instruction in the Frojbel Union, of which she was President, and 
visiting the Kindergartens of the city. She desired very much that 
I should connect myself permanently with the Union ; but I had 
promised already to Frasbel's widow to become a co-worker and 
partner with her, and to conduct her training-class for kindergartners, 
which she considered to be my chief calling. Whilst doing this, 
Madame Goldschmidt planned that I should give one model lesson 
each day alternately in one of her Kindergartens. But all this was 
fi'ustrated. For, when visiting my parents, I fell desperately ill with 
a nervous fever, and all idea of work had for the time-being to be 
given up. When I was strong enough to resume my work I 
thought of starting a Kindergarten in Schwerin, capital of the 
Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. I wrote an article on the 
system which was presented to the chief councillor of the consistory, 
who seemed, however, neither to know nor to care much about the 
matter, and I was, in brief, informed that Froebel's ideas were too 
liberal, etc., and that my plan of opening such a Kindergarten would 
neither receive support nor consideration. So I shook off once more 
the dust from my feet and turned my back on Mecklenburg. 

Kindergarten Work in Lilheck. 
In a visit to my sister in LUbeck, I succeeded in persuading her 
to engage for her children a kindergarten-nurse, a pupil of the 
Frcebel-Union in Hamburg. By conversation I interested a few of 
the Liibeck people, and not long after I opened a Kindergarten, 
altliough teachers, clergymen, and physicians declared openly that 
they would be my opponents. This — and also, that others had 
tried before me and failed, only stimulated me more to gain the 
point! When I received permission from the magistrate it was 
under the condition not to call it " Kindergarten." To this I adhered 
only as long as my Kindergarten was not an established fact. The 
President of the School Council, an old friend of my father's, 
informed me briefly that he was not in favor of the Kindergarten 
mode of education, and would in no way further or aid my object. 
I opened in October with only seven children, and at Christmas I had 
twenty-two children in my Kindergarten, and in June the number 
had increased to fifty-five children. I had four beautiful rooms and a 
garden with a large tent, under which in summer we worked and 
played. The mothers visited the Kindergarten daily in turn. 



REMINISCENCES OP KINDERGARTEN WORK. 547 

Kindergarten-trained Nurses. 
Besides kindergartners I trained young girls for the nursery. The 
latter had been carried out under Madame Goldschmidt's direction 
for years in the Hamburg Froebel Union. Madame Goldschmidt 
urged at the General Educational Union the necessity of training 
young girls to go into families as hand-maidens to mothers, and spe- 
cified the differences of this training from that for training kinder- 
gartners, but said " all must be on Froebel's principles," which were 
identical for nurseries and Kindergartens, with differences of appli- 
cation in each. In the same spirit Mr. Wm. Walker, in an address 
at the annual meeting of the Kindergarten Association, held in Man- 
chester, on the Nursery Influence, said : '" The true, real nurses have 
to be made. Trained nurses for sick people are trained in a special 
training mstitution. Where is the institution for training nurses for 
the children of our gentlefolk ? I do not merely advocate the Kin- 
dergarten system, but let me say that where there is, in the midst of 
a poor population, a well-conducted Kindergarten, the poor man's 
child has a wiser, more scientific, more natural, happy, and useful 
nursery than is found in many a rich man's house. There one may 
find young girls who have been taught and trained in those common- 
sense subjects, and those wise and patient modes of dealing with 
children, the want of which has been a perpetual loss to those we 
most love. But not only should there be training-schools for nurses 
and governesses, but such an amount of pecuniary renumeration 
should be offered as will command a better class of girls ; for wliil.-t 
warehouses and shops can offer high wages and more liberty we can 
only have the residuum of young females from which to select those 
who are to join in sowing seeds — and what seeds ? Seeds which will 
develop a harvest of good or bitter fruit in the hearts and lives 
of our children. So long as we pay our nurses and governesses as 
little or less than we pay our cooks, or the coachman who cares for 
our horses, or the gardener who supplies our table with flowers, — how 
can we reasonably expect * leet with persons fit and capable to 
tend those nobler and more tender plants which are growing up 
around our hearths ? This then is what is wanted, that mothers shall 
take a higher view of their work and their helpers, and that nurses 
shall be selected, educated, and raised to a higher sense of their work, 
and be better paid, and thus take theii** proper and legitimate station 
as the deputy mother." 

In November, 1868, I went as Delegate to the Women's Conven- 
tion in Berlin, in company with my old friends Madame Johanna 
Goldschmidt and Madame Emilie Wiistenfeld. There I made the 



548 REMINISCENCES OP KINDEEGARTEN WORK. 

acquaintance of Max Ring, Berthold Auerbauch, Schultze Delitsch, 
Louise Biichner, Jenny Hirsch, Bertha Meyer, Lina Morgenstern, 
Mr. Nathaniel Allen of Massachusetts, Mr. and Mrs. Doggett of 
Chicago, Frau Doctor Elise Lindner (a mutual friend of John Kraus 
and the Baroness Marenholtz, and a prominent propagator of the 
Kindergarten), Madame Thielow, daughter of Diesterweg, Auguste 
Schmid, Auguste von Weyrowitz, and others. I here also met my 
aunt, Amely Boelte, again after many years. 

During the French war we had in my Kindergarten a fair of kin- 
dergarten work done by hfty-six children from three to seven years 
old; the gains, $100, were destined for the benefit of the 
wounded on both sides. The children also were busy in pulling old 
linen into threads for the wounded. The Kindergarten proved suc- 
cessful, and the President of the School Council was — before a year 
had passed — one of the first to acknowledge that he could not do 
otherwise but approve of the Kindergarten ; and the clergymen and 
physicians also became our best advocates. 

My entire work in Liibeck proved very successful. The people 
of Liibeck adhere strongly to their old habits and customs, and are 
mostly in all they do, thorough ; therefore, without any interference 
from any of the parents, who one and all manifested the greatest con- 
fidence in whatever I did, I could go on gradually in my work — and 
tJiat made my success ! The Liibeck people are very "matter of 
fact" people, and the children — as a rule — lived not in fairy-land as 
I had done during childhood. I resolved to develop their sense for 
the beautiful as much as possible, to awaken their imagination and 
inventive powers to a certain degree. They soon grew to be them- 
selves the sweetest flowers in this little paradise I had created for 
them. When Madame Froebel came to visit me, she exclaimed with 
tears in her eyes : " Oh, that Frcebel had known you — could have 
seen your work ; you are, in truth, his spiritual daughter." I shall 
never forget these words ; they have strengthened me many times, 
and raised me above what was sometimes hard to contend with. 

By and by I was obliged to start an elementary class — an inter- 
mediate between Kindergarten and School. If the children were 
n;iughty at home there was no greater punishment than to be kept at 
home, or to communicate it to me. Once a little boy was asked by 
his mother: "Why are you not as good at home as you are in the 
Kinilergarten ?" He smiled and said : ''Oh, but there is Tante Marie 
(thus the children called me) and I could not be naughty with her !" 
Another child, who once at home did not speak the truth, when 
questioned, said : " I must say the right thing to Tante Marie, for 



I 



REMINISCENCES OF KINDERGARTEN WORK. 549 

she looks so straight info my eyes that I know she sees my heart ; 
and then," he added in a whisper. " she never scolds me I" Blessed 
little heart ! If there were less scolding and more love in the nurse- 
ries we would not know such a thing as an untruth in the little oms- 

Excursions — Christmas Festival. 

Sometimes I made excursions with a certain number of the 
children, which not only gave pleasure, but without their perceiving 
it, a great deal of in-truction and training was derived. At Christmas 
the children invited their parents and presented them with little self- 
made gifts hung on a Christmas tree. 

The first time that I held this festival T asked a clergyman who 
seemed to have some interest in our work to say a few words to the 
assembled parents, and oflfer a prayer for the children fitted for the 
occasion. He replied, saying that " he did not know enough as yet 
of the system." I taught the children then to sing a little "thanks- 
giving," and put in verse a few words, in which they addressed their 
parents, telling them of their love and offering their little gifts. It 
was a touching scene that followed, each mother and father kissino- 
their child. About this time I received a letter from Ma-laraa 
Frcebel in which she said : " In the winter when Froebel lectured in 
Hamburg, and trained his pupils in the different courses, he went at 
Clu'istmas to Liebenstein where I then was training some kindt-r- 
gartners and also conducted a kindergarten. Froebel arrived the 
evening before Christmas eve, and allowed himself no recreation, but 
was all day busy in arranging some little gifts for all, children and 
adults. Christmas eve, when the children entered, they were received 
with a song; and the room, otherwise so simple, now ornamented 
with garlands and lights, was surprisingly beautiful. After the fes- 
tival we walked through the village to partake of the festivity in 
another family. During the Holidays Froebel was occupied daily 
during the mornings ; the evenings he passed in the family circle* 
On the last evening of the old year he returned to Hamburg, so that 
he might begin his instruction at once in the new year. These days 
in MaVienthal are a lasting, beautiful remembrance. Froebel was 
grateful for every little gift, and he cared for each member of the 
family with the greatest attention. You may easily imagine that 
these seasons are very desolate for me, and particularly now, when I 
am alone. I am almost afraid of such times. Yet hitherto all has 
been well, and I will not worry about it, I have the knowledge of 
having aided through my work to increase the Cliristraas joy in some 
fcimilies, and this knowledge should help to make me glad. " 



550 REMINlSCElSrCES OF KINDERGARTEN WORK. 

Mrs. Maria Kraus Boelte's Personal Reminiscences of Kinrler- 
garten woi'k closes with her engagement in Lubec in 1871. On the 
death of her father in that year, her thoughts turned with irresist- 
ible bias to the United States as the most suitable field for the new 
education. To this field Fjoebel himself had looked for an escape 
from the cruel interdict of the Prussian government on the Kinder- . 
gaiten in 1851, and at an earlier date in his Education of Man, had 
pointed to German emigration to America as the means of spread- 
ing sound principles of human culture over a Continent. 

In 1870 Miss Boelte's attention had been attracted to an article 
by Frau Lindner of Berlin, in the " Cornelia," a magazine for home 
education, on FroeheVs Method of Education in America, based on 
the report of Gen. Eaton, the United States Commissioner of Edu- 
cation, for that year. In that Report reference was made to a volu- 
minous paper prepared in the office by one of the Commissioner's 
assistants, which included " an exhaustive history of the rise and 
progress of Kindergartens." That paper was prepared by IMr. 
John Kraus, at the request of Dr. Barnard, the first Commissioner 
of Education, in 1868, to strengthen the positions and recommenda- 
tions of his Special Report on Public Instruction in the District of 
Columbia. In that report the Kindergarten, the connecting link 
between the home and the school, as continuing the work of nurture 
and development, and beginning the work of instruction on the act- 
ual inspection and perception of real objects, was made the basis of 
a system of public instruction for the District. Mr. Kraus inquiries 
covered the whole field of early training, the Infant School, 
the supplementary agencies for orphan and neglected childi'en, 
and particularly, all institutions based on the views of Pes- 
talozzi, Dies terweg, and Froebel. Of this disciple of the Diesterweg- 
Pestalozzian School we hope to give an account in a fuiure journal. 

Out of that article in the 'Cornelia' sprang a correspondence in 
which the hearts, as well as the heads of two persons became so 
deeply interested, that the upshot of the whole matter was the estab- 
lishment, in the city of New York, in 1873, of the Normal. Train- 
ing Kindergarten, and its associated model classes, of which we 
shall proceed to give an account. In the developement of this 
veritable Froebelian Institute, Prof. Kraus, and Mrs. Kraus-Boelte 
have worked in full accord, against difficulties and hindrances 
which would have appalled spirits less determined, and against the 
strongest temptations to lower the standard of qualifications in natural 
endowments and special knowledge for all candidates for their 
diplomas. 



THE NEW YORK NORMAL KINDERGARTEN 

AND ASSOCIATED MODEL CLASSES. 



rNTEODUCTION. 



The Model Kindergarten, which "constitutes the germ and the basis 
of the Normal Seminary for the training of Kindergartners, conducted 
by Prof. John Kraus and Mrs. Maria Kraus Boelte, at 7 East Twenty- 
second Street, New York City, was opened in October, 1872. At the 
same time Mrs. Kraus (Maria Boelte) invited the mothers of the chil- 
dren to a conference, in which she explained the principles and meth- 
ods of the Kindergarten, and pointed out the ways in which they could 
apply the same principles in the nursery, and co-operate with her in 
their own homes and with each other, to realize the best results of 
child culture. Similar conferences were subsequently held, and con- 
stitute now a feature of the institution known as the Mothers' Class. 

As the children of the Kindergarten were of different ages (from 
three to seven years) and in different stages of development, they were, 
from the first, grouped in several divisions •, and, as the same causes 
continue to operate, there are now three recognized divisions — groups 
with mateiial and occupation suitable to each. As the older children 
passed out of the Kindergarten age and its appropriate treatment, the in- 
tuitional instruction which belongs to the elementary school was intro- 
duced, and, by degrees, the two additional groups — the Intermediate 
Class, and Elementary Class — were formed, and now constitute inte- 
gral parts of the Seminary, which includes children from the age of 
three (and a few even younger, the babies of the house) to ten years. It 
has been the wish of the founders to give to these advanced classes the 
special character of the School Garden, as developed by Dr. Schwab. 

From the ' start, the training of women for Kindergarten work as 
teachers, mothers, and nurses, has been the chief aim of the founders. 
A Training Class for Kindergartners was opened in 1873, and has been 
maintained in great efficiency through each year since. In 1880 a class 
for Nurses was announced ; so that at this date we have in New York 
the facilities of the best Kindergarten work in all stages of the child's 
development, and, at the same time, a preparation and demonstration 
of school instruction in harmony with the same. 

The Normal Kindergarten. 

No Normal School can do even moderately good work in its legitimate 
sphere, and especially in training its pupils in methods of primary 
teaching, unless it has a well organized model school of several classes 



553 NEW YORK NORMAL KINDERGARTEN. 

in immediate conuection, and entirely under control of the normal 
director. Without such model classes it is difficult to see any reason 
why normal schools should exist. Tliey should be professional or 
nothing; and they cannot be professional in any fair sense or measure 
unless they have such means of giving the best facilities for illustra- 
tion and practice of the principles taught. 

What is said here about Normal Schools in general with Model 
Schools, may just as well be applied to a Training School for Kinder- 
gartens in connection with the Model Kindergarten. There is, how- 
ever, a broad difference between the Kindergarten and the School; for 
each has a different aim, and is conducted according to different 
methods. Thoughtful parents are sufficiently aware, how detrimental 
premature schooling is to the sound development of body and mind ; 
how it destroys all the freshness and pleasure of learning. The health- 
ier the child is, the more its life manifests itself in untiring activity. 
Play is the child's natural, earnest existence ; in play it develops best 
and most naturally all the powers of body and mind. All the positive 
result that can be expected from the Kindergarten is "play." In a 
true, genuine Kindergarten we have demonstration, tliat children, in 
their earliest plays can be guided into order wliich shall be cultivating 
to their whole nature, intellectual and moral as well as physical. 
Thus the child early learns and improves among its companions. The 
desire to imitate, this useful element in the child's constitution, finds 
ample scope in the Kindergarten, and is called into exercise without 
over-straining or fatiguing the faculties. The true Kindergarten renders 
helps at the right time, and at tlie I'ight point in tlie child's nurture. 
It proposes formation instead of reformation, prevention instead of 
cure. It utilizes human energies, instead of crushing them; it induces 
activity, instead of restraining it. It develops order, instead of forc- 
ing it. It creates appetite, instead of cramming it. It works in harmony 
with nature's laws, instead of antagonizing them. 

TTie Model Kindergarten and Classes. 

The Kindergarten proijer comprises three divisions, and the elemen- 
tary department three classes, arranged according to the ages of the 
children, as follows: — 

Kindergarten, HI. Division, for children from three to four years old. 

Kindergarten, II. Division, for children from four to five years old. 

Kindergarten, I. Division, for children from five to seven years old. 

Intermediate Class, for children from six to seven years old. 

Advanced Class, for children from seven to eight years old. 

Elementary Class, for children from eiglit to ten years old. 

The children of the intermediate and advanced classes, almost with- 
out exception, have gone through a regular course in the Kindergarten. 
There are, in fact, children in the advanced and elementary classes 
"Who entered the Kindergarten four, five, and six years ago. 



NEW YORK NORMAL KINDERGARTEN. 553 

There is unity in the plan upon which the education during those 
seven years is conducted in this institute. At three, a child enters 
the lowest division, a few even before that age. Here the work of the 
Kindergarten is raore that of a mother, with all the freedom of the 
nursery. The very best Kindergarten is the home, with the mother 
at the head, first properly trained for her task. "Mr. and Mrs. Kraus' 
Kindergarten is, indeed, a glorified nursery, introducing the children 
into wider companionship and more artistic play than the mother's 
nursery can do, or should try to do, even when that is the best. It is 
the next stage of the child's education, whose necessity is indicated 
by its desire when it is about three years old, to break out of that 
sacred precinct, and find more and varied objects." 

In the room occupied by the first and second divisions, stand a num- 
ber of tables, cane chairs and benches in height befitting the little 
people for whom they are destined. 

The smallest children are also from time to time happily engaged in 
playing with heaps of sand on large tin trays — ^just as children play 
at the sea-side, scooping it out, making mounds, with trenches round 
them, etc. These sand-heaps afford an immense amount of innocent 
amusement, not altogether unaccompanied with instruction. Altogether 
it gives full swing to the little ones to live out the inborn instinct of 
"digging in the ground." Sometimes " make-believe gardens " are 
laid out with cut flowers, leaves, branches, the flower-beds being 
trimmed around with shells or pebbles. Mountains and ponds are 
made; the latter are enlivened with toy-fishes, ducks, and boats. 
Seeds are also sown in boxes filled with earth, and tended until grow- 
ing into plants; birds, fishes, and other pets are taken care of. Pic- 
tures, songs, conversations and games lead the children to a further 
acquaintance with nature. By means of seeds, straws, papers, balls, 
blocks, and other material they become acquainted with number, form, 
color and size. 

The large hall, which serves also for a play-room, is the work-room 
of Division I. of the Kindergarten and Division III. of the Elementaiy 
Class, consisting of children between five and seven years old. The 
plants, as well as the cabinet filled with natural objects, show that 
here the children are made still more acquainted with nature ; and the 
occupations and gifts decorating the walls, not only indicate the pro- 
gress of each occupation, but give an illustration of the entire method. 
Each child has for itself fiowers and vegetables to tend, growing in 
flower-pots or boxes. The children have in common a garden-plot. 
In the cabinet are found over eiglity different kinds of wood ; as well 
as a great variety of seeds, grains, bulbs, stones, shells, insects, eggs, 
feathers, birds' nests, and other real objects. 

The square net-work wiiich is found on all the tables and black- 
boards in this dejjartment is of particular importance, and necessary 
for the more advanced and sometimes quite complicated forms of the 



554 NEW YORK NORMAL KINDERGARTEN. 

gifts which are here carried out ; here, also the occupations are much 
developed, demanding at this stage greater exactness. Among tliese 
we find paper-intertwining, paper-cutting and mounting, as geometrical 
exercises ; also free-cutting, and pea-work, which is so important for 
the knowledge of forms, and particularly instructive for the conditions 
of the axis of the geometrical figures; and clay-work, the fore-runner 
of future modeling; also double-weaving and paper-folding of the 
triangular, hexagonal, and circular forms. 

The multiplicity of color in this department strikes the eye at once. 
The large safe contains many specimens of the children's work, which, 
as model-forms, are the ornament of every Kindergarten. These serve 
also to preserve some of the early indications of aptitude for future 
occupations — the hatter, cobler, potterer, architect, sculptor, etc. The 
leaves worked in clay disclose many practical lessons in botany. 

It is evident that in this room tlie real life of the Kindergarten is 
concentrated ; here everything assists to produce the best work. Here 
all the children assemble in the morning for the oj^ening exercises, 
which consist of a childlike prayer and morning song, here the chil- 
dren listen to the story, or join in the conversation, which uncon- 
sciously trains them to habits of correct expression among themselves. 

Division III. of the Elementary Class separates from the other 
children for about forty minutes in the morning, in order to become 
initiated, according to the natural method, in the rudiments of read- 
ing and writing. The children of this room take conjointly the 
arithmetic lesson, given with blocks, sticks, and other objects. The 
luncheon is a feature turned into a means of training in social and 
personal habits. The birthdays of the children, as they occur, are 
each celebrated by special work and play; and the children are led to 
please their friends by the product of their own industry. 

Christmas, Valentine's day, Washington's birthday, April-fool's day, 
Easter, Froebel's birthday, and the 1st of May are celebrated each in its 
own characteristic way. The poor are specially remembered by various 
gifts, particularly on Christmas. One of the Christmas festivals is 
thus described by a correspondent of The World: 

" One of the most charming school reunions of the season was the Christ- 
mas celebration in the Model Kindergarten of Professor and Mrs. Kraus 
in New York. . . Three large Christmas trees were filled with the 
presents made by the children for their parents and friends, whom they 
had invited themselves. These are two marked features of the fine Kin- 
dergarten festival of Christmas, viz. : It is a feast that the children pre- 
pare for their parents, and in which they are reminded not to forget the 
poor. One tree was ornamented with presents for the children in the 
Home of the Friendless. * * * 

" One of the Christmas trees stood in the middle of the cheerful room of 
the Kindergarten, which was ornamented for the occasion with wreaths 
and flowers. The children, from sixty to seventy in number, had been 
ei.tertained on the second floor with stories until the appointed hour, 
eleven o'clock. They then marched hand in hand, keeping time to music 
After a short childlike prayer, some Christmas and social songs were sun^i 



NEW YORK NORMAL KINDERGARTEN. 555 

amongst others ' how lovely are the ties,' ' Tender is the meeting,' etc., 
accompanied on the piano. Then followed gymnastic exercises under the 
guise of play. Several movement games followed, representing different 
trades and occupations ; the woj-ds accompanying these games were sung 
alternately in English, French, and German. A so-called ' quiet game ' 
followed, which teaches the children to control themselves, and trains them 
unconsciously to politeness, while Professor Kraus played very sweet chords 
pianissimo on the piano, and then invited the children as well as the ladies 
of the training class around the piano for another Christmas song, viz. : 
'Silent Night, Holy Night.' Then the children distributed the presents 
fi'om the Christmas tree to their parents and friends. Once more a circle 
was formed, a song followed, and the last tree was given up to the childi*en. 
The festival closed with a hearty good-by song." 

It is seldom that an institute will be found where the beneficial in- 
fluence upon the children, of female and male co-operation, is more felt 
than in this of Mr. and Mrs. Kraus. Their congeniality, their perfect 
sympathy and harmony is felt everywhere; and this feature also char- 
acterizes tlieir "Kindergarten Guide." Everything is not only seen 
through female, but also through male lenses, in an educational point 
of view. In this connection we may cite from a letter of Mr. John 
Kraus to Miss Peabody in the Kindergarten Messenger of April, 1874: 

" I beg leave to say that I think it a great mistake that men are ex- 
cluded from the early education in this country. In Europe it has become 
an acknowledged fact that Kindergartens become only a success, when 
men and women work together. And why not? 'It is not good for man 
to be alone,' said the Creator, and gave to man and woman a joint domin- 
ion over the earth. Why should not these natural, heaven-appointed allies 
work together in the Paradise of Childhood? Pestalozzi and Froebel have 
set an example for aU times to come in that direction." . . . 

Intermediate and Elementary Glass. 

The ornamentation and furniture of the room of the first and second 
elementary divisions show that the method is continued and extended. 
Desks and tables adapted to other kinds of work, maps, globes, cards 
representing animals, birds and plants, and other natural objects, 
attract attention. The manner of employing certain gifts, and the 
extension and continuation of various occupations, are soon recognized 
by the experienced eye. The paper square, for instance, is used in 
folding for practical instruction in geometry. The forms of bodies 
are represented in outline by peas and sticks, and the bodies Ijy clay 
and wax. It gives pleasure to the children, after preliminary conver- 
sation on the single objects, to produce them alone by the lielp of the 
various material, and the usefulness of so doing is obvious; for not 
only do forms and parts impress themselves more distinctly, but the 
relations of color become clearer. Thus the varying occupations assist 
and heighten the conception. 

Natural history — animal, vegetable, and mineral, is also here con- 
tinued and extended. Pictures, models, or living types are presented 
to the pupils ; the forms, magnified, are illustrated on the blackboard, 
£lnd copied by the pupils on slates and paper. The growth and de- 



556 NEW YORK NORMAL KINDERGARTEN. 

velopment of shells give the starting- point. The attention is constantly- 
attracted to the gradual transformations of all that is obsei-ved in 
nature, as in the fly, the silk-worm, wasp, mosquito, grasshopper, 
spider, tadpole, and other living things. Attention is also called to 
domestic animals, the cat and the dog; to mushrooms and the fungus; 
to roots in general, and in particular to such as serve for food ; to 
vegetables and fruit, the people and their customs, and birds of various 
plumage and habits in different countries. 

The earth from which the plant derives its nourishment becomes 
also an object of interest; the difference of the common garden- 
ground, the clay, chalk, and sand, is observed, and what use is made 
of clay for earthenware and china. Glass-making becomes of interest. 
Many things are told of the city they live in: of the gas, calcium, and 
electric light — the substitute for daylight; of the furnace, and how it 
warms the rooms. The dew and rain-drop, hail, snow-flakes, frost 
and ice, all become attractive. Flowers, plants in general, and their 
leaves in particular, are studied, stimulating the children to make col- 
lections. These objects are not only talked about, shown, illustrated, 
drawn by the children, but, in many cases, reproduced in clay, wliich 
assists in making the ideas received better understood. A certain 
classification, which the children are held to carry out from the be- 
ginning of the simplest gifts and occupations in the Kindergarten, is 
thus continued and extended. 

The furniture of the schoolroom leads them to a knowledge of wood 
and trees. They learn about slates and their manufacture, the mate- 
rial of paper and paper-making, about the rubber, and sponge, and 
similar articles of daily use. The children also are told of great and 
good men, whose names are associated with their work. Not a few 
historical and geograpliical facts are closely connected with the chil- 
dren's own experience. All the above-mentioned subjects assist and 
serve to initiate and perfect the children of this class in the rudiments 
of all knowledge. Drawing is thus made the first prerequisite and 
preparation for writing. The method of the Kindergarten is contin- 
ued here, leading the child to mathematical drawing in the composi- 
tion of the straight lines. The connection of all kinds of slanting 
lines, passing from the corners of a square standing "corneiwise," 
always two and two lines of the same kind, one in the horizontal^ the 
other in the vertical direction, from without and within, give, in the 
point they traverse each other, a polygon which forms the intermedia- 
tion to the circle. By further logical process a series of drawing is 
carried out in the circular lines. This kind of drawing is alternated 
with so-called " inventive drawing, " consisting of a certain combina- 
tion of straight or circular lines, either symmetrical or representing 
objects, carried out according to the child's own idea. 

Of course, the members of the intermediate and elementary classes, 
have gone, almost without exception, through the regular course in 



NEW YORK NORMAIi KINDERGARTEN. 557 

the Kindergarten. Thus, Mr. and Mrs. Kraus are able to show how 
Froebel intended to continue the system of educational development 
after the Kindergaiten, — whose aim is to enlarge the home-education 
of children between three and seven years of age, before the time 
when they are due at the school, — with the same material and the 
same method in extension.* 

Training Glass. 

The instruction given to the Training Class begins in October, 
and ends in June following — embracing at least five lessons per week, 
besides the actual practice in the Kindergarten, for all the working 
portions of one year. 

The qualities and qualifications looked for in candidates for the 
diploma of this class are : 

1. A quick and responsive sympathy with children — a real, genuine 
sympathy, and not simulated. 

3. A child and motherly heart — something which inspires the 
feeling of sister and mother for children, and makes them happy in 
their company, and gives a clear insight into child nature and life up 
to the seventh year. 

3. An exact knowledge and spiritual comprehension united with 
dextrous handUng of the Kindergarten material. 

4. Sufficient musical knowledge and vocal ability to sing well the 
little songs and guide the plays. 

5. A cheerful humor, that can easily enter into the child's 

* Mr. J. Bjans has already shown, some years ago, how the Kindergarten is to be finally 
developed in the school-garden, in accordance with the ideas of Dr. Erasmns Schwab, at 
Vienna, who says in regard to this subject : " For more than a century, thinking ped- 
agogues have been seeking to embody the thought of the school-garden in some practica- 
ble method. It was lying near, and is simple in itself ; but they did not succeed in find- 
ing a practical form for it. ... A hundred years hence it will seem inexplicable that 
for centuries there could exist among cultured nations public schools without school-gar- 
dens, and that in the nineteenth century, communities and nations in generous emulation 
could furnish the schools with all things dictated by common-sense, and profit, and care, 
except, in thousands of cases, an educational medium that should suggest itself to the 
mind of even the common man. Surely, before fifty years shall have passed, the school- 
garden will receive the consideration it deserves, as surely as drawing, gymnastics and tech- 
nical instruction for girls— whose obligatory introduction was deemed impossible forty 
years ago— have found a place in our schools. The school-garden will exert a powerful 
influence upon the heart of the child, and upon his character ; it will plant in the children 
the love of nature, inculcate the love of work, a generous regard for others, and a whole- 
8ome aesthetic sense." 

In regard to the Organic Link between Kindergarten and School, Mr. Kraus said, in the 
discussion on the report of the committee appointed at the meeting in Boston, in 1872, to 
inquire into the form in which Froebel's principles maybe most efficiently applied to the 
educational wants of the country [pp. 237-41 of the Addresses and Journal of Proceed- 
ings of the National Educational Association Session, of the year 1873, at Elmira, New 
York] : " Kindergarten education will have its fine success only then, when the organic 
link between it and the school is created ; such a link will bring great advantage to the 
school, because the Kindergarten itself gives security for an all-sided, natural training. 
The school must not be a Kindergarten, and the Kindergarten not a school." 



558 NEW YORK NORMAL KINDERGARTEN. 

plays, and is not easily disturbed by occasional frowardness, or real 
shyness. 

The object of the course is to give the members of the class a clear 
conception of Froebel's pedagogic aim in his several gifts and occupa- 
tions, and to show the deep significance of the child's natural play, 
and breathe a true spirit into employments which become otherwise 
incomprehensible mechanism. Tlie characteristic of Froebel's method 
of occupying children to their own development, lies in permitting 
them unconsciously to bring forth a product by their own feeble elTorts, 
and thus awaken and develop the germs of the creative spirit to 
produce individual work, and not mere imitation. 

To secure a real fusion of learning, work, and play, the objects 
are not all ready made, and enough only is said or done, so as to invite 
some independent mental or muscular energy upon the material. Chil- 
dren's activity must be encouraged, and only so far directed, so as to be 
saved from destructiveuess, and prevented from exhausting itself into 
languor and thoughtlessness. The danger of the occupations of chil- 
dren degenerating into mere imitation and mechanical routine, must 
be obviated, by leaving ample scope for exciting and employing the 
imagination and invention, in their own combination of the mate- 
rial. 

Too much is done in our American Kindergartens, and the same 
defect is noticed in most European institutions, with perfected pat- 
terns and elaborated materials ; and great efforts are made in this 
Training Class to teach its members how to vary the exercises, encour- 
age children to devise patterns, and use, modify, and make up the 
material for themselves, each in his own way. In their published 
circular Mr. and Mrs. Kraus say : 

" It cannot too often be repeated that the significance of Froebel's system 
consists in so arranging the gifts and occupations as to encourage and 
enable the child to transform and recombine the material, and thus 
strengthen by exercise his bodily and mental faculties. Individuality is 
thus developed. Froebel gives explanations how to conduct their games : 
to know them all is quite a study ; to apply them well, an art ; to under- 
stand their full significance, a science. No one can master all these details 
without deep study, much observation, and thoughtful practice. And 
when mastered, the Kindergartner deserves a rank and remuneration not 
now accorded to her." 

Nearly two hundred ladies have availed themselves of the oppor- 
tunities in training which this Seminary has offered, and hold its 
diploma. Many of them are now teachers of the Kindergarten method 
in several Normal Schools, Principals of Ladies High Schools, con- 
ductors of independent Kindergartens in some of our chief cities, 
ladies of education from different parts of the country, with their 
daughters for their own personal culture, sisters of charity and other 
devoted women, to qualify themselves to conduct asylums, and infant 
schools for neglected children. 



BOSTON KINDEEGAETEN TEAINING CLASS. 



HISTORICAL NOTES. 

The Boston Kindergarten Training Class at 52 Chestnut street, 
was ojjened in 1868 by Madame Kriege and her daughter. Miss 
Kriege was prepared for her work in Germany by the Baroness 
IMarenholz-Biilow, and taught successfully in New York on her first 
arrival in America. For four years these ladies worked faithfully 
in Kindergarten and Normal Class, meeting many discouragements, 
and overcoming many obstacles ; they sowed good seed that is bear- 
ing fruit now. 

On their return to Germany in 1 872 a graduate of theirs took up 
the work in Boston. Miss Garland had had long experience in 
teaching, and found in this new way of educating young children an 
embodiment of many of her own conceptions, and the perfecting of 
me* hods she had been groping for. Her work began with two chil- 
dren, and the number during the first year was but eight. 

It became necessary to form a Normal Class, and among the 
pupils was Miss R. J. Weston, who had taught very successfully for 
many years in the Primary Schools of Boston, and had always 
leavened the public school methods with the Kindergarten spirit. 
After her graduation, in the autumn of 1873, Miss TVeston associa- 
ted herself with Miss Garland in the charge of the Kindergarten 
and Normal Classes, taking also the special care of the Advanced 
Kindergarten class formed that year. Since then the work has 
made steady progress, and the whole number of pupils for the last 
three years has been about fifty. 

The Kindergarten. 
The Kindergarten proper includes two divisions; the youngest 
children, usually three and four years of age, chiefly under Miss • 
Garland's care ; the next division, including children in their second 
Kindergarten year, and from five to a little over six years of age, 
under the care of an assistant. The Intermediate or " Connecting 
Class," in w^hich writing, reading, and written arithmetic are begun 
while one period is still devoted to Kindergarten work, is mainly 
under Miss Weston's direction. The children in this class are over 
six years of age. 



5g0 BOSTON KINDERGARTBN TRAINING CLASS. 

Advanced Class. 
In the advanced class the elementary studies are carried on, and 
here the children's powers of observation, thought, and expression 
developed in the Kindergarten are further strengthened and exer- 
cised by lessons in natural science; knowing through doing not 
being laid aside in any of the classes. Children thus far have been 
members of this class to the age of twelve. An effort is made to 
preserve unity throughout the work, and in all grades to work for 
the development of the three-fold nature. In some general exer- 
cises, as in the daily gymnastics, and occasionally in games, all the 
children in the building are brought together. 

Normal Class. 

The normal class is usually limited to twenty ladies ; these are 
chosen from among all applicants, according to natural ability and 
educational fitness, determined by certain informal examinations or 
tests. The pupils are required to devote seven months to the study, 
spending four afternoons each week in class work and an average 
of two forenoons in the Kindergarten department, as well as a num- 
ber of weeks in the free Kindergartens of the city. The course of 
study includes, besides the distinctive theory and practice of the 
Kindergarten, lectures on moral and religious culture ; on hygiene 
and the physical needs of children ; on music in its application to 
the Kindergarten ; and lessons in modelling and free hand drawing* 

At the end of their course the students receive certificates, if 
their course has been satisfactory, signifying approval of their work 
during the time ; a blank is left to be filled in after a year or more 
of service if they prove themselves competent as Kindergartners. 

Conferences of Kindergartners. 

Once a month a meeting of all the Kindergartners of Boston and 
its vicinity is held. It has grown from a very small beginning to 
.quite large proportions, its list numbering more than eighty names. 

The subjects discussed are those that have practical value in the 
work of the teachers, as : " How can we best cultivate moral inde- 
pendence in children ? " " How preserve the balance between spon- 
taneous self-activity and due regard for the rights of others ? " 

Difficulties encountered during the month in the guidance of the 
children or in the application of Kindergarten principles to work or 
play, are brought before these meetings, and the reflex influence of 
the discussion has been found of great value. 



FRCEBEL'S PRINCIPLES AND METHODS IN THE NURSERY. 

A LECTURE TO YOUNG KINDERGARTNERS. 

BY ELIZABETH P. PEABODT. 



HELPLESSNESS OP INFANCY. 

By the primal miracle {i. e., wonder working) of nature, the mother 
finds in her arms a fellow-being, who has an immeasurable susceptibility 
of suffering, and an immeasurable desire of enjoyment, and an equally 
immeasurable force intent on compassing this desire already in activity, 
but with no knowledge at all of the material conditions in which he is 
placed, to which he is subject, and by which he is limited in the exercise 
of this immense nature. 

Every form of animal existence hut the human is endowed with some 
absolute knowledge, enabling it to fulfill its limited sphere of relation- 
ship as unerringly as the magnetized needle turns to the pole, and even 
with more or less enjoyment; yet with no forethought. But the knowl- 
edge which is to guide the blind will of the human being, even to escape 
death in the first hour of its bodily life, exists substantially outside of itself 
in the mother, or whoever supplies the mother's place. 

And throughout the existence of the human being, the forethought that 
is to enable him to appreciate his ever-multiplying relations with his own 
kind, and which grows wider and sweeter as he fulfills the duties they 
involve, is essentially outside of himself as a mere individual; being found 
first in those who are in relation with him in the family, afterwards in 
social, national, cosmopolitan relationship; till at last he realizes himself to 
be in sonship with God, in whom all humanity, nations, families, individ- 
uals, "live and move and have their being." There is no absolute isola- 
tion or independency possible for a spiritual being. This is a truth 
involved in the very meaning of the word spirit, and revealed to every 
family on earth, by the ever-recurring fact of the child born into the arms 
of a love that emparadises both parties, on which he lives more or less a 
pensioner throughout his whole existence, so far as he lives humanly, 
finding fullness of life at last in the clear vision and conscious communion 
of an Infinite Father, who has been revealing Himself all along, in the 
love of parent and child, brother and sister, husband and wife, friend, 
fellow-citizen, and fellow-man. Christ said, that little children see the 
Father face to face, but surely not with the eyes of the body or of the 
understanding! They see Him with the heart. And 'is it not true, that 
we never quite forget the child's vision in turning our eyes on lower 
things? for what but remembrance of our Pleavenly Father's face is hope, 
"that springs eternal in the human breast"? What but this remem- 
brance are the ideals of beauty that haunt the savage and the sage? the 
sense of law that gives us our moral dignity, and, in the saddest case, what 
but this are the pangs of remorse, in which, as Emerson has sung in his 
wonderful sphinx f'ong, "lurks the joy that is sweetest "? 

36 (561) 



562 



FROEBEL IN THE NURSERY 



KEASONS FOR FRCEBEL'S AUTHORITY. 

Frcebel has authority with me, because, in this great faith, making 
himself a little child, he received little children in the name (that is, as 
germinating forms) of the Divine humanity, with a simple sincerity, such 
as few seem to have done since Jesus claimed little children as the pure 
elements of the kingdom he came to establish on earth, and exhorted 
that, as they were such, they should be brought to Him as the motherly 
instinct prompted, and declared that they were not to be forbidden (that 
is, hindered as all false education hinders). 

Let us begin, then, with reverently considering the new-born child, as 
Frcebel did; for that is to be " the light of all our seeing." 

A child is a living soul, from the very first; not a mere animal force, 
but a person, open to God on one side by his heart, which appreciates 
love, and on the other side to be opened to nature, by the reaction upon 
his sensibility of those beauteous forms of things that are the analysis of 
God's creative wisdom; and which, therefore, gives him a growing under- 
standing, whereby his mere active force .shall be elevated into a rational, 
productive will. For heart and will are, at first, blind to outward things 
and therefore inefficient, until the understanding shall be developed 
according to the order of nature. 

But during this process of its development, adult wisdom must supply 
the place of the child's wisdom, which is not, as yet, grown; that is — an 
educator must point out the way, genially, not peremptorily; for in 
following the educator's indications, the child must still act in a measure 
from himself. As he is irrefragably free, he will not always obey; he 
will try other paths — perhaps the contrary one — by way of testing 
whether he has life in himself. But unless he .shall go a right way, he 
will accomplish nothing satisfactory and reproductive; and it is Froebcl's 
idea to give him something to do, within the possible sphere of his 
affection and fancy, which shall be an opportunity of his making an expe- 
rience of success, that shall stimulate him to desire, and thereby make 
him receptive of the guidance of creative law, which is the only true 
object for the obedience of a spiritual being. 

SENSE OP TASTE AND HEARING. 

To the new-born child, his own body is the whole universe ; and the 
first impression he gets of it seems to come from his need of nutriment. 
But it is the mother, not the child, that responds to this want, by pre- 
senting food to the organ of taste, and producing a pleasurable impression 
which arouses the soul to intend iUelf into the organ, which is developed 
to receive impression more and more perfectly, by the child's seeking for 
a repetition of the pleasure. For a time, whatever uneasiness a child 
feels, he attempts to remove by the exercise of this organ, through which 
he has gained his first pleasant impression of objective nature. There- 
fore is it, that his lips and tongue become his first means of examining 
the outward world into which he has been projected by his Creator. 

The ear seems to be the next organ of which the child becomes con- 
scious, or through which he receives impressions of personal pleasure and 
pain ; and here it is noticeable, that rythmical sound seems, from the very 
first, to give most pleasure; and is wonderfully effective to sooth the 



FRCEBEL IX THE NURSERY. 563 

nerves, and remove uneasiness. All motliers and nurses sing to babies, 
as well as rock them (which is a rythmical motion), and this pleasant 
impression on the ear diverts the child from intending himself exclu- 
sively into the organ of tasting. He now stretches himself into his ears, 
whose powers are developed by gently exercising their functions. 

The child seems to taste and hear before he begins to see anything 
more dctinite than the difference between light and darkness. By and by 
a salient point of light, it may be the light of a candle, catches and fixes 
his eye, and gives a distinct visual impression, which is evidently pleas- 
urable, for the child's eye follows the light, showing that the soul intends 
itself into the organ of sight. Soon after, gay colors fix its gaze and 
evidently give pleasure. The eye for color is developed gradually, like 
the ear for music, by exercise, which being pleasurable becomes spon- 
taneous. 

The whole body is the organ of touch; but as the hands are made con- 
venient for grasping, to which the infant has an instinctive tendency, and 
the tips of the fingers are especially handy for touching, they become, by 
the intension of the mind into them, the special organ for examining 
things by touch, and getting impressions of qualities obvious to no other 
sense. When, as it sometimes happens, by malformation or maltreat- 
ment of them, the eyes fail to perform their functions, it is wonderful 
how much more the soul intends itself into the special organs of touch, 
developing them to such a degree, that a cultivated blind person seems 
almost to see with the tips of the fingers. This fact proves what I have 
been trying to impress on your minds, that the soul which spontane- 
ously desires and wills enjoyment, takes possession and becomes con- 
scious of its organs of sensuous perception, partly by an original impulse 
given to it by the Creator, and partly (which I want you especially to 
observe), by the genial, sympathetic, intelligent, careful co-working of 
the mother and nurse ; who, by what we call nursery play, gives a needed 
help to the child to accomplish this feat in a healthy and pleasurable 
manner. And we shall be better convinced of the virtue of this nursery 
play, if v.'e consider the case of tlie neglected children of the very poor, 
so pathetically described by Charles Lamb. — Popular Fallacies, No. 12. 

Madame Marenholtz-Bulow has happily remarked, in her preface to 
Jacob's Manual, Le jarden des Enfans, that "to develop and train the 
senses is not to pamper them." The organs of tasting and smelling do 
not require so much exercise by the duplicate action of the mother as 
those of seeing and hearing. The former have for their end to build up 
the body; the latter to lead the child's mind out of the body to that part 
of nature which connects him with other persons. The functions of both 
are equally worthy; but those of the latter belong to the child as a social 
and intellectual being. It is the mother's office to temper the exercises of 
each sense, so that they may limit and balance each.othei". And in order 
to limit those which are building up the body, so that they shall not 
absorb the child, the action of the others must be helped out. "Our 
bodies feel — where'er they be— against or with our will " ; but to see and 
hear all that children can, requires exertion of will and this is coaxed out 
hy the sympathetic action of others. Yet the functions of tasting or 
smelling are not to be banned. The Creator has made them delightful; 



5^4 ' FRGEBEL IN THE NURSERY. 

and if others do their proper part, their exercise will never become harm- 
ful. To enjoy tasting and smelling is no less innocent than to enjoy see- 
ing and hearing. There is no function of mind or body but may be 
performed divinely. Milton shows insight into this truth by making 
Raphael sit and eat at table with man in Paradise ; and he saj's some won- 
derful things upon the point, which will bear much study. And have we 
not in sacred tradition a symbol, still more venerable, of the truth, that 
the fire of spirit burns without consuming, and may transform the body 
without leaving visible residue? There are in Brown's philosophj (which 
does not penetrate into all the mysteries of the rational soul and immortal 
spirit) some very instructive chapters on the social and moral relations of 
the grosser senses (as taste, smell, and touch arc sometimes called). It is 
the part of rational education to understand all these things thoroughly, 
and adjust the spontaneous activities by subordinating them to the end of 
a harmonious and beneficent social life. The Lord's Supper may be made 
to illustrate this general human duty. 

There is. doubtless marked difference in the original energy of life in 
different children. Young — but not too young, happy, healthy, loving 
parents have the most vigorous, lively, and harmoniously organized 
children; but in all cases the impulse of life must be met and cherished 
by the tender, attractive, inspiring force of motherly love ; which, with 
caressing tone and invoking smile, peers into the infant's eyes, and impor- 
tunately calls forth the new person, who, as her instinctive motherly faith 
and love assure her, is there ; and whom she yearns to make conscious of 
himself in self-enjoyment. The time comes when the little body has 
become so far subject to the new soul, that an answering smile of recog- 
nition signalizes the arrival upon the shores of mortal being of "that 
light which never was on sea or land," another immortal intelligence! It 
is only the smile of the intelligent human face that can call forth this 
smile of the child in the first instance ; but let this glad mutual recogni- 
tion of souls take place once, and both parties will seek to repeat the 
delight again and again. Few persons, indeed, get so chilled hj the suf- 
ferings and disappointments, and so hardened by the crimes of human 
life, but on the sight of a little child, they are impelled to invoke this 
answering smile by making themselves, for the moment, little children 
again ; seeking and finding that communion with our kind which is the 
Alpha and Omega of life. 

Do not say that I am wandering, fancifully, from the serious work 
which we are upon ; I am onlj'^ beginning at the beginning. We can only 
understand the child and what we are to do for it in the Kindergarten, by 
understanding the first stage of its being — the pre-intellectual one in the 
nursery. The body is the first garden in which God plants the human 
soul, " to dress and to keep it." The loving mother is the first gardener 
of the human flower. Good nursing is the first word of Frcebel's gospel 
of child-culture. 

The process of taking possession of the organs, that I have just de- 
scribed, is never performed perfectly unless children are nursed genially. 
If bitter and disagreeable things are presented to the organ of the taste, 
they are rejected with the whole force of a will which is too blind in its 
ignorance to find the thing it wants, but vindicates its irrefragible freedom 



FRCEBEL m THE NURSREY. ddo 

of choice by dttering cries of fright, pain, and anger, as it shrinks back, 
instead of throwing itself forward into nature. If the cruel thing is 
repeated, the nerves are paralyzed, or at least rendered morbid, especially 
when rude, untender handling outrages the sense of touch. When rough 
and discordant sounds assail the ear, or too sharply salient a light the eye, 
these organs wiH be injured, and may be rendered useless for life. The 
neglected and maltreated child is dull of sense and lifeless, or morbidly 
impulsive, possibly savagely cruel and cunning, in sheer self-defense. 
The pure element and first condition of perfect growtlf is the joy that 
responds to the electric touch of love. 

INSTINCT OF MOTION — PLAYING. 

Underlying and outmeasuring all this delicate development of the 
organs of the five senses, is the whole body's instinct of motion, which is 
the primal action of will. The perfectly healthy body of a little child, 
when it is awake, is always in motion — more or less intentionally. When 
asleep, there is the circulation of the blood, and pulsation of the solids of 
the body, corresponding to the act of breathing, which is involuntary; 
and any interruption of these produces disease — their suspension, death. 
But the motion which makes the limbs agile, and the whole body elastic, 
and gradually to become an obedient servant, is voluntary, intentional, 
and can be helped by that sympathetic action of others, which we call 
playing with tJie child. Fropbel's rich suggestions on tliis play ai-e con- 
tained in his mother's cossetting songs; and I am glad to tell you that two 
English ladies, a poet and a musician, have translated and set to music 
this unique book; and that just now it has been published by Wilkie, 
Wood & Co., in London. It suggests all kinds of little gymnastics of 
the hands, fingers, feet, toes, and legs, for these are the child's first play- 
things; and also the first symbols of intelligent communication, giving 
the core and significance to all languages. 

I think that a baby never begi7is to play, in the first instance, but 
responds to the mother and nurse's play, and learns thereby its various 
members and their powers and uses; and when at last it jumps, runs, 
walks, by itself, which it cannot begin to do without the help of others, 
it is prepared to say /, with a clear sense of individuality. 

In analyzing the process of a child's learning to walk, we see most 
clearly the characteristic difference between the human person and the 
animals below man in the scale of relation. The little chicken runs about 
of itself as soon as it is out of the shell ; but the human child, even after 
all its limbs are grown, and though he has been moving himself on all 
fours by means of the floor, and supporting himself by means of the fur- 
niture to which he clings, does not walk. He will only stand alone, unsup- 
ported, when he sees that there are guarding arms round about him, all 
ready to catch him if he should fall. He seems to know instinctively, 
that all the force of the earth's gravitation is against him. He does not 
know that he may balance it by his personal power. His body weighs 
upon his soul like a mountain, precisely because he is intelligent of it as an 
object, loves it as a means of pleasure, and dreads its power of giving 
pain to him. The little darling stands, perhaps between the knees of his 
father, whose arms are round about him; the mother opens her loving 



566 



FROSBEL IN THE NUKSERY. 



ai'ms to receive him, and calls bim to her embrace; the way is short 
between, and three steps will be sufficient, but where is the courageous 
faith to say to this mountain of a body, " be removed to another place"? 
It is not in himself; he cannot produce it any more than he can take him- 
self up by his own ears. It is in the mother; for it is she, not he, who 
has the knowledge of the yet unexerted power which is flowing into the 
child from the Creator. Only by the electric touch of her faith in him 
does his faith in himself flash out in answer to her look and voice of 
cheer, and he rushes to her arms. It is the doing of the deed which gires 
to himself the knowledge of the power that is in him. He repeats it 
again and again, seeming to wish to be more and more certain of his 
being the cause of so great effect. Thus cause and effect are discrim- 
inated, and "to him that hath" a sense of individuality " shall be given," 
for evermore, a growing power over the body, to which no measure can 
be stated. Even on the vulgar plane of the professional tumbler, a man's 
power over his body seems sometimes to be absolute and miraculous. 
But the annals of heroism and martyrdom are full of facts that go to 
prove to all who consider them profoundly, that the immaterial soul is 
sovereign, when, by recognizing all its relations, it subjects the individual 
to the universal, and becomes thereby entirely spiritual (which is man 
reciprocating with God; becoming more and more conscious for ever). 

From what has been said of the soul's taking possession of the body 
and its several organs, by exercising the functions of tasting, hearing, see- 
ing, smelling, touching, grasping, moving the limbs, and at last taking 
up the whole body into itself in the act of walking, we see that it is all 
done, even the last, by virtue of the social nature. 

Frcebel took his clue from this fact, a primal one, and never let it go, 
and it is of the greatest importance that it be understood clearly, that 
conscious individuality, which gives the sense of free personality, the 
starting point, as it were, of intelligent will, is perfectly consistent with 
and even dependent on the simultaneous development of the social prin- 
ciple in all its purity and power. 

We see a sad negative proof of this in asylums for infants abandoned 
by their mothers, or given up by them through stress of poverty. There 
is one of these in New York city, into which are received poor little 
things in the first weeks of their existence. Everything is done for their 
bodily comfort which the general human kindness can devise. Tliey 
have clean, warm cradles and clothes, good milk, in short everything but 
that caressing motherly play, which goes from the personal heart lo the 
personal heart. That is the one thing general charity cannot supply; it 
is the personal gift of God to the mother for her child, and none but she 
can be the suflUcicnt medium of it, and therefore, undoubtedly it is, that 
almost all new-born children in foundling hospitals die; or, if they sur- 
vive, are found to be feeble-minded or idiotic. They seem to sink into 
their animal natures, and belie the legend, man, written on their brows, 
showing none of that beautiful fearlessness and courageous affectionate- 
ness that characterize the heartily welcomed, healthy, well-cared-for 
human infant. On the contrary, they show a dreary apathy, morbid 
fearfulness, or a belligerent self-defense, anticipative of other forms of 
the cruel neglect which has been their dreary experience. 



FRCEBBL IN TUB NURSERY. 507 

PLAYTHINGS — FRCEBEL'S FIRST GIFT. 

Taking a liiut from observations of this kind, together with the bitter 
experiences of his own chiklhood, Frrebel supplied to the mother or nurse 
some playthings for the baby, which might continue to improve the vari- 
ous organs of its body bj" making the exercise of their functions a social 
delight. What is called the first gift he proposes should be used in the 
nursery first. It consists of six soft balls, not too large to be grasped by 
a little hand, and the use of which in the nursery is suggested by a little 
first book for mothers, that has been translated from Jacob's Lejardiri des 
Enfans. I think it is important for the Kindergartner to know what 
Frcebcl thought could be done for the development of the infant in the 
nursery, since if it has not been done there, she must contrive to remedy 
the evil in the Kindergartner. You will bear with me, therefore, if I go 
quite into the minutiae of this matter. It will open your eyes to observe 
delicately, as Froebel did. 

He proposed that the red ball should be first presented. He had 
observed that a bright light concentrated, as in a candle, first excited the 
organ of sight and stimulated its action. Hence he inferred that a bright 
color would do the same, a neutral tint would not be seen at all probably. 
The red ball is not quite so salient and exciting as the light of a candle, 
but on that account it can be gazed at longer without producing a painful 
reaction. The child will have a pleasure in grasping it, and will prob- 
ably carry it to its lips; but, as it is woolen, it will not be especially agree- 
able to the delicate organ of taste. It will all the more be looked at, 
therefore, and give the impression of red. Froebel proposes that it shall 
be called the red ball, in order that thejmpression of the word red on the 
ear shall blend in memory with the impression of the color on the eye. 
As long as the child seems amused with the red ball, he would not have 
another color introduced, because he thought it took time for the eye to 
get a clear and strong impression of one color, and this should be done 
before it was tried v.'ith a contrasted impression. But by and by the blue 
ball, as the greatest contrast, may be given and named, and all the little 
plays suggested in the mother's book be repeated with the blue ball ; and 
then the yellow ball should be given with its name ; and then the three be 
given together, and the baby be asked to choose the blue, or red, or yel- 
low one. By attaching a string to them and whirling them, or letting the 
infant do so, it is surprising how long the child will amuse itself with 
these balls, and what pleasure colors alone give, especially when combined 
with motion. 

The secondary colors may afterwards be added to the treasury for the 
eye, with the same carefulness to secure completeness and distinctness of 
impression, and to associate the color with the word that names it ; for 
language, the special organ of social communion, should be addressed to 
the child from the first, though its complete attainment and use is the 
crown of all education. 

Smiles and sounds, proceeding out of the mouth, are the first languages, 
and begin to fix the little child's eyes and attention upon the mouth of 
the mother, from which issue the tones that are sweetest to hear, and 
especially when in musical cadence. But the child understands the words 



568 FRCEBEL IN THE NURSERY. 

addressed to liiin long before he himself begins to articulate ; for language 
is no function of the individual, but only of the consciously social being, 
yearning to find himself in another. 

There is a reciprocal communication betAA-een infants and adults that 
precedes the difHcult art of articulation. This we call the natural lan- 
guage, and it is common to all nations, being mutually intelligible, as is 
proved by deaf mutes from remote countries who understand- each other 
at once. But this natural language has a very narrow scope. It serves 
to communicate instinctive wants of body and heart, but does not serve 
the fine purposes of intellectual communication, nor minister any consid- 
erable intellectual development. These signs are very general, while 
every word in its origin has represented a particular object in nature. In 
analyzing any language we find that the names given to the body and its 
members, and to the actions and facts of life, without which no human 
society can exist, are the nucleus or central words Avhich characterize it, 
and from which the whole national rhetoric is derived. Hence there is a 
value for the mind in associating the words and action of even such a 
little play as "here we go up, up, up, and here we go down, down, down, 
and here we go backwards and forwards, and here we go round, round, 
round," with other rhymes and plays of an analogous character that are 
found wherever there are mothers and children. 

MOVEMENT PLAYS. 

We have observed that the moment of first accomplishing the feat of 
running alone, seemed to be that of the child's beginning to realize him- 
self to be a person, but that, even in this act, he was dependent ujoon his 
mother; that his bodily independence Avas the gift of her faith in that 
Mdthin him, which is essentially superior to the body and can command 
it as instrumentality. To make it instrumentality is, more and more, a 
delight to the child, in which his mother sympathizes; and by this sym- 
pathy aids him. All his plays involve exercise of the power of command- 
ing his body. As soon as a child can move it from place to place, his 
desire to exercise his power on nature outside of himself increases, and he 
is prompted to measure strength with other children. If children were 
mere individuals they would merely quarrel, as Hobbes says; but being 
social beings also, they tend to unite forces and aid one another to com- 
pass desired ends. By so doing they rise to a greater .sense of life, and 
brotherly love is evolved. But in the de\'elopment of the social life, the 
more developed and cultivated elder must come in, to keep both parties 
steady to some object outside of themselves, which it takes their union to 
reach. Children can be taught to play together by engaging their powers 
of imitation and addressing their fancy. Every mother knows that in the 
first opening of children's social life their bodily energies are stimulated 
to such a degree that it is quite as much as she or one nurse can do to 
tend two or three children together; and by the time they are three j'ears 
old, the family nursery becomes too narrow a sphere for them. It is then 
that they are to be received into a Kindergarten, whose very numbers will 
check the energy of activity a little, by presenting a greater variety of 
objects to be contemplated; and because social action must be orderly 
and rythmical, in order to be agreeable. This a properly prepared Kin- 



FRCEBEL IN THE NURSERY 569 

dcrgarf nor knows, and by her sympathetic influence and power over the 
childisli imagination, she will bring gradually all the laws of the child's 
being to the conscious understanding, beginning with this rythmical one 
at the center. 

The movement plays which Frojbel invented, express, in dramatic form, 
some simple fact of nature or some childish fancy, for which he gives, as 
accompaniment, a descriptive song set to a simple melody. The children 
learn both to recite and to sing the words of the song, and then the move- 
ments of the play. To them the whole reason for the play seems to be 
the delight it gives, the exhilaration of body, the amusement of mind. 
But the Kindergartncr knows that it serves higher ends, and that it is at 
least always a lesson in order, enabling them to begin to enact upon earth 
" Heaven's first law." 

Do not say I am making too solemn a matter of these movement plaj^s 
to the Kindergartner. Unless she remembers that this very serious aim 
underlies every play which she conducts, she will not do justice to the 
children. Law or order is one and the same thing with beauty; and play 
is nothing if it is not beautiful. When she insists upon the children gov- 
erning themselves, so far as to keep their proper places in relation to each 
other; to forbear exerting undue force, and to seek to give the necessary 
aid to others by exerting sufficient force, the beautiful result justifies her 
will to the minds of the children, and commands their ready obedience. 
She must call forth by addressing it the sense of personal responsibility in 
each child; and this, if done tenderly and with faith, it is by no means 
difficult to do. The reward to the children is instant in the success of the 
play, and therefore not thought of as reward of merit. It is a form of 
obedience that really elevates the little one higher in the scale of being as 
an individual, without endangering the reaction of pride and self-conceit; 
for self is swallowed up in social joy. 

When I was in Germany I went to those Kindergartens taught by Froe- 
bel's own pupils, and I found that in these the movement plays were the 
most prominent feature of the practice. More than one was played in the 
course of the three or four hours, and especially when the session was as 
much as four hours. It was done in a very exact though not constrained 
manner, and much stress seemed to belaid upon every part. The singing 
was not done by three or four, but all the children were encouraged to 
sing. Often the little timider ones were called on to repeat the rhyme 
alone, without singing it, and then to sing it alone with the teacher. 
Thus the stronger and abler were exercised (as they must be so much in 
real life) in waiting, sympathetically, for the weaker. A great deal of 
care was also exercised in regard to the form and character of the play 
itself. Those of Froebel's own suggestion and invention were the pre- 
ferred ones. They consisted in imitating, in rather a free and fanciful 
manner, the actions of the gentler animals, hares and rabbits, fishes, bees, 
and birds. There were plays in which children impersonated animals, 
evidently for the purpose of awakening their sympathies and eliciting 
their kindness towards them. Many of the labors of human beings, com- 
mon mechanics, such as cooperage, the work of the farmer, that of the 
miller, trundling the wheelbarrow, sawing wood, &c., were put into form 



570 FRCEBEL IN THE NURSERY. 

by simple rhymes. The children sometimes personated machinery, some- 
times great natural movements. In one instance I saw the solar system 
perfoDned by a company of children that had been in the Kindergarten 
four years, but none of them were over seven years old. Mere move- 
ment is in itself so delightful and salutary for children that a very little 
action of the imitative or fanciful power is necessary, just to take the 
rudeness out of bodily exercise without destroying its exhilaration. 

But it is by no means merely a moral discipline that is aimed at in the 
Kindergarten, as you will see when the bearings upon their habits of 
thought, of all that the children do, are pointed out to you, in the various 
occupations, which are sedentary sports, though the moral discipline is 
the paramount idea, and never must be lo.st sight of one moment by the 
Kindergartner. We mean by moral discipline, exercising the children to 
act to the end of making others happy, rather than of merely enjoying ' 
themf^elves. If the individual enjoyment is not a social enjoj'^meut, it is 
disorderly and vitiating. But the individual is lifted into the higher 
order for which he is created, by merely enjoying, whenever his enjoy- 
ment is social. I am of course speaking of that season of life under seven 
years of age, when the mind is yet undeveloped to the comprehension of 
humanity as a whole; when the good, the true, and the beautiful are 
nothing as abstractions, and can only be realized to their experience and 
brought within the sphere of their senses by being embodied in persons 
whom they love, reverence or trust. The words good, beautiful, kind, true, 
get their meaning for children by their intercourse with such persons. 
Specific knowledge of God cannot be opened up in them by any words, 
unless these words have first got their meaning by being associated with 
human beings who bear traces that they can appreciate of His ineffable 
perfections. To liken God's love to the mother's love, brings home a con- 
ception of it to children, for hers they realize every day. 

COLORED BALLS. 

The connecting link between the nursery and Kindergarten is the First 
Gift of Frajbcl's series, being used in both. The nursery use will have 
taught the names of the six colors, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and 
purple, and made it a favorite plaything. It is all the better if the child 
has had no other playthings prepared for him. He has doubtless used 
the chairs, footstools, and whatever else he could lay his hands on, to 
embody his childish fancies; and it is to be hoped he has been allowed to 
play out of doors with the earth, and has made mud pies to his heart's 
content — not tormented with any sense of the — at his age — artificial duty 
of keeping his clothes clean. That duty is to be reserved for the Kin- 
dergarten age, and will come duly, by proper development of the mental 
powers. 

In the Kindergarten, the ball-plays are to become more skillful, and 
the teacher must see that the child learns to throw the ball so that it may 
bound back into his own hands; so that it may bound into the hands of 
another who is in such position as to catch its refiux motion. The chil- 
dren must learn to toss it up and catch it again themselves. "When stand- 
ing in two rows they can throw it back and forwards to each other. 
When standing in a circle, the balls may be made to circulate with 



FRCEBEL IN THE NURSERY. 



571 



rapidity, passing from liaud to hand, the children singing the accompany- 
ing song. 

"Who'll buy my eggs? " is a good play to exercise them in counting. 
And all these movement plays with the ball arc admirable for exercising 
the body, giving it agility, grace of movement, preqjsion of eye and 
touch. These things will accrue all the more surely if it is kept play, 
and no constraining sense of duty is called on. As most of these plays 
are not solitary, they become the occasion for children's learning to adjust 
themselves to each other, and the teacher must watch that hilarity does 
not become violence or rudeness to each other, but furtherance of one 
another's fun; and occasionally, in enforcing this harmony, a child must 
be removed from the play and made to stand in a corner alone, or even 
outside of the room, till the desire of rejoining his companions shall 
quicken him to be sufficiently considerate of them to make pleasant play 
possible. All children in playing together learn justice and social graces, 
more or less, because they find that without fair play their sport is 
spoiled; but this play must be supervised by the Kindcrgartner, in order 
that there may not be injustice, selfishness, and quarreling. A Kinder- 
gartner, who is not a martinet, and who is herself a good play-fellow, 
will magnetize the children, and inspire such general good-will that 
unpleasantness will be foreclosed in a great measure; but a company 
of children are generally of such variety of temperament and different 
degrees of bodily strength, have so often come from such inadequate 
nursery life that the regulating kindcrgartner has a good deal to do to 
Ijrevent discords and secure their kindness to each other and the reason- 
able little self-sacrifices of common courtesy. But she will find a word 
is often enough; the question, Is that right? "Would you like to have any 
one else do so? It is sometimes necessary to bring all the play to a full 
stop, in order to bring the common conscience to pronounce upon the 
fairness of what some one is doing. I would suggest that the question be 
asked not of the class, but of the individual culprit, whether what is 
being done wrong is right or wrong? The child, with the eyes of the 
class upon him, will generally be eager to confess and reform, because 
the moral sense is quite as strong as self-love, and especially when re-in- 
forced by the presence of others. It is not worth while to make much of 
little faults, and the first indication of turning to the right must be 
accepted; the child is grateful for being believed in and trusted, and the 
wrong-doing is a superficial thing; the moral sentiment is the substantial 
being of the child. 

Of all the materials used in Kindergarten the colored balls are most 
purely playthings; and there are none of the plays so liable to be riotous 
as the ball plays. There is the greatest difficulty in keeping children 
from being too noisy, and it is not wise to make too much of a point of it. 
The ball seems a thing of life. It is very difficult for them to get good 
command of it. It excites them to run after it; and shouts and laughter 
are irrepressible. But there are reasonable limits. The Kindcrgartner, 
in conversation beforehand, should make them see that they may get too 
noisy, and tire each other, and she will easily induce them to agree to 
stop short when she shall ring the bell, and be willing to stand still while 



Qtj2 FRCEBEL IN TDE NURSERY. 

she counts twenty five, or watches the second hand of her watch go 
around a quarter, a half, or a whole minute, as may be agreed upon 
This can be made a part of the play, and to pause and be perfectly still 
in this way, will give them some conception of the length of a minute, 
and teach self-command, as well as make a pleasant variety. 

The ball plays should always be accompanied and alternated, in the 
Kindergarten, with conversations upon the ball, naming the colors, tell- 
ing which are primary, which are secondary, and illustrating the differ- 
ence by giving them pieces of glass of pure carmine, blue, and j-ellow, 
and letting them put two upon each other, and hold them towards the 
window, and so realize the combinations of the secondary colors. Ask 
them, afterwards, to tell what colors make orange, or purple, or green, 
and what color connects the orange and green; or the purple and orange, 
or the green and purple. 

One of the other exercises on the day of using the First Gift may be 
sewing with the colored threads on the cards; and the colors may be 
arranged so as to illustrate the connections, etc., just learned. The use of 
the First Gift need only be once a week. It will then be a fresh pleasure 
every time during the whole of the Kindergarten course, even if it should 
last three years. After the children have become perfectly familiar with 
the primary and secondary colors, their combinations and connections, the 
lessons on colors may lie varied by telling them that tints of the primaiy 
colors and of the secondary colors are made by adding white to them; 
and shades of them (which "will, of course, be darker) by adding black to 
them. This may be illustrated by flowers, as may vari(jus combinations 
of colors. A very little child, whom it was hard to train even to the 
hilarious and gay plays, and whose attention could not easily be fixed, 
surprised a teacher one day by his aptitude in detecting what color had 
been mixed with red to make a very glorious pink in a phlox. This child 
liked to sew, but was very impatient of putting his needle into any special 
holes. It proved to be the pleasure of handling the colored yarns, and he 
was always eager to change them and to form new combinations. It 
may not be irrelevant to say here, in regard to ball-playing, from which I 
have digressed to colors, that the ball is the last plaything of men as well 
as the first with children. 

The ol)ject teaching upon the ball is strictly inexhaustible. Children 
learn practically, by means of it, the laws of motion. Beware of any 
strictly scientific teaching of these laws in terms. You may make chil- 
dren familiar with the phenomena of the laws of incidence and reflection, 
by simply telling them that if they strike the ball straight against the wall 
opposite, it will bound straight back to them, and then ask them whether 
it returns to them when they strike it in a slanting direction. By and by 
this knowledge can be used to give meaning to a scientific expression. 
It is a first principle that the object, motion, or action should precede the 
icord that names them. This is Froebel's uniform method, and the reason 
is, that when the scieiitific study does come, it shall be substantial, mental 
life, and not mere superficial talk. It is the laws of things that are the 
laws of tliouglit; and thought must precede all attempt at logic, or logic 
will be deceptive, not reasonable. Most erroneous speculation has its 



FRCEBEL IX THE NURSERY. 573 

roots in mistakes about words, ■wliicli it is fatal to divorce from wliat tliey 
express of nature, or to use without taking in tlieir full meaning. 

In the easy mood of mind that attends the lively play of childhood, 
impressions are made clearly ; and it should be the care of the educator to 
have all the child's notions associated with significant words, as can only 
be done by his becoming their companion in the play and talking about 
it, as children always incline to do. It is half the pleasure of their play 
to represent it in words as they are playing. In the nursery the mothers 
play with the child, and all her dealings with it are expressed in words 
that are important lessons in language ; and, together with language, we 
give a lesson in manners, by first trotting a child gently and then jounc- 
iugly to the words, " This is the way the gentle folks go, this is the way 
the gentle folks go; and this is the way the country folks go, this is the 
way the country folks go — bouncing and jouncing and jumping so." To 
describe what they are doing in little rhymes when playing ball, makes it 
a mental as well as physical play of faculty, and Frcebel published a 
hundred little rhymes, and the music for as many ball plays. 

It is not an unimportant lesson for children to learn, that the same 
things seem different in different cii'cumstances. The fact that white 
light is composed of different-colored rays can be illustrated by giving 
the children prisms to hold up in the sunshine; and by calling their atten- 
tion to the splendid colors of the sky at sunset and sunrise, when the 
clouds act as prisms, and to the rainbow. Children of the Kindergarten 
age will be so much engaged with the beautiful phenomenon they will 
not be likely to ask questions as to how the light is separated by the 
prism and clouds; they will rest in the fact. But if, by chance, analytic 
reflection has supervened, and they do, then a large ball on which all the 
six colors are arranged in lines meridian-wise, to which a string is attached 
at one pole, or both poles, can be given them, and they be told to whirl it 
very swiftly. This will present the phenomenon of the merging of the 
colors to the eye by motion, so that the ball looks whitish, from which 
5'ou can proced to speak of light as being composed of multitudinous 
little balls, of the colors of the rainbow, in motion, and so looking white. 

If some uncommon little investigator should persist to ask why things 
seem to be other than they are, he must be plainly told that the reason is 
in something about his eyes which he cannot understand now, but will 
learn by and by when he goes to school and learns optics. 

Children are only to be entertained in the Kindergarten with the facts 
of nature that develop the organs of perception, but a skillful teacher who 
reads Tyndall's charming books and the photographic journals may bring 
into the later years of the Kindergarten period many pretty phenomena 
of light and colors, which shall increase the stock of facts on which the 
scientific mind, when it shall be developed, may work, or which the future 
painter may make use of in his art. 

When Allston painted his great picture of Uriel, whose background 
was the sun, he thought out carefully the means of producing the daz- 
zling effect, and drew lines of all the rainbow colors in their order, side 
by side, after having put on his canvas a ground of the three primary 
colors mixed. When the picture was first exhibited at Somerset House 



5Y4 FRCEBEL IN THE NURSERY. 

the effect "was dazzling, and it was bought at once by Lord Egremont, in 
a transport of delight; and for twice the sum the artist put upon it, that 
is, six hundred guineas. I do not know whether time niaj' not liave 
dimmed its brilliancy, since paint is of the earth, earthy; but to paint the 
sun at high noon, and have it a success, even for a short time, is a great 
feat; and art, in this instance, took counsel of science deliberately, accord- 
ing to the artist's confession. But perfect sensuous impressions of color 
and its combinations were the basis of both the science and the art. 

This lecture is getting too long, and I will close by saying that the First 
Gift has, for its most important office, to develop the organ of sight, which 
grows by seeing. Colors arouse intentional seeing by the delightful im- 
pression they make. I believe that coIor-bUndnens (which our army exam- 
inations have proved to be as common as icant of ear for music) may he 
cured by intentional exercise of the organ of eight in a systematic way; 
just as ear for music may be developed in those who are not born with it. 
Lowell Mason proved, by years of experiment in the public schools, that 
the musical ear may be formed, in all cases, by beginning gently with 
little children, giving graduated exercises so agreeable to them as to 
arouse their will to ii-p to hear, in order to reproduce. 

That you may receive a sufficiently strong impression of the fact that 
the organs of perception actually grow bj-^ exei-cise -with intention, I will 
relate to j-ou a fact that came under my own observation. 

A young friend of mine became a pupil of Mr. Agassiz, who gave him, 
among his first exercises, two fish scales to look at through a very power- 
ful microscope, asking him to find out and tell all their differences. At 
first they appeared exactly alike, but on peering through the microscope 
all the time that he dared to use his eyes for a month, he found them full 
of differences; and he afterwards said that " it was the best month's work 
he ever did, to form t7ie scientific eye which could detect differences ever 
after, at a glance," and proved to him an invaluable talent and gave him 
exceptional authority with scientists. 



THE MOTHER PLAY AND NURSERY SONGS. 

BY MISS SUSAN E. BLOW, ST. LOUIS. 



INTRODUCTION. 

" The child does not become man but he is born man." In the unity 
of human life lies the explanation of its different phases. All the essen- 
tial elements of human nature exist in the newborn child ; for " What 
is not in man can never be evolved from man," and infancy, child- 
hood, youth, manhood, and old age are but the successive stages of one 
organic process of development. 

Obviously, therefore, human life must be read backwards if we would 
grasp its significance. We do not understand the oak from the acorn, 
but the acorn from the oak. The noonday explains to us the sunrise, 
and the prophecies of the spring-time are interpretedby their fulfillment 
in the harvest. So maturity reveals to us the holy mystery of child- 
hood, and it was He " who knew all that was in man," who set a little 
child in the midst of his disciples and bade them learn from him how 
to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. 

Equally clear is it that we learn the true meaning and value of our 
individual lives through society and history. They paint life for us on 
a wide canvas, and in a true perspective. Through them we separate 
what in ourselves is essential and permanent from what is accidental 
and transitory ; from them we learn the direction in which we are tend- 
ing and the ends we blindly seek ; in them we find the solution of our 
contradictions, the answers to our enigmas and the vindication of our 
hopes. 

The practical outcome of these thoughts is, that the child is potentially 
a man, and the individual man is potentially mankind. 

As all force must exert itself, and as its activity is always expression 
of its essential nature, the physical, mental and spirituaJ forces in the 
child may be clearly traced in his manifestations. Our tendency to trace 
these manifestations to a purely physical source is a great error, because 
the child is never a purely physical being. If the man Columbus is 
to be driven by the spirit within him to venture on the pathless ocean 
in search of a new world, may not the first faint stirrings of this spirit 
cause the joy of baby Columbus in the great unknown "out-of-doors?" 
Must not Mozart as a baby have loved sweet sounds, and Titian have 
rejoiced in rich colors, and Phidias have felt a pleasure in harmonious 
forms ? " Can you tell, oh mother," writes Frdbel, " when the spirit- 
ual development of your child begins? Can you trace the boundary-line 
which separates the conscious from the unconscious soul? In God's 
world, just because it is God's world, the law of all things is continuity, 

575 



576 THE MOTHER PLAY AND NURSERY SONGS. 

— there are and can be no abrupt beginnings, — no rude transitions, no 
to-day which is not based upon yesterday. The distant stars were 
shining long before their rays reached our earth ; the seed germinates in 
darkness, and is growing long before we can see its growth ; so in the 
depths of the infant soul a process goes on which is hidden from our 
ken, yet upon which hangs more than we can dream of good or evil, 
happiness or misery." 

We are told of the one ideal mother that she kept all her child's say- 
ings in her heart, and we cannot but connect this with the fact that she 
alone of all the mothers of men knew the end of her son's life from the 
beginning. The more clearly we realize in our souls the ideal of man- 
hood, the more reverently will we study the instructive utterances and 
actions of the child. 

It is no argument against the significance of the child's manifestations 
that he himself does not know what he is doing, or why he is doing it. 
On the contrary we know him all the better because he does not know 
himself. Self-knowledge brings self-control, and consciousness hides 
what instinct reveals. The special value of the first period of life lies 
in the spontaneous expression of its uncomprehended powers, and, in 
the blind directness of the child's impulses, we clearly read their 
nature and their end. 

In studying children we must, however, carefully distinguish between 
childhood and the individual child. The demands of the latter may be 
selfish exactions, and to yield to them is only to stimulate caprice, — the 
demands of the former must indicate universal and necessary conditions 
of development. The one may have their source in a perverted indi- 
viduality, — the other can be rooted only in the essential nature of man. 
Only very shallow thought ever sets up as a standard the individual 
consciousness, while true insight into the universal is the kernel of all 
philosophy, and the practical application of this insight the kernel of 
all education. 

It is Frobel's distinctive merit to have turned the light of these 
truths full upon the first period of life. Realizing profoundly the con- 
tinuity of individual life, lie traced the conscious powers of the man 
back to their instinctive beginnings, and, deeply imbued with a sense of 
the organic unity of mankind, he found in the parallel between tlie life 
of the race and the individual not merely a scientific generalization, but 
a clew to the manifestations of the child and a guide for his develop- 
ment. He has shown that human culture in all its branches is reflected 
in the instinctive activity of the child, and dimly responded to by the 
instinctive sympathy of the mother, — has analyzed the games and songs 
which have delighted the children of all races and of all ages, and 
brought to light their hidden meaning; has reproduced them in his 
" Mother Play and Nursery Songs " in a form adequate to this attained 
insight ; and through this very remarkable book has bridged the gulf 
between the conscious and the unconscious periods of life, taught to 



THE MOTHER PLAY AND NURSERY SONGS. 577 

mothers the hitherto unrecognized aim of their own acts, and enabled 
them to exert upon their children, from the very beginning of life, a 
continuous influence tending towards a clearly perceived end. 

The highest form of the child's self-expression is play, and if we ob- 
serve this play carefully we shall find that it has three very interesting 
aspects. It is, first, the reproduction of experiences ; second, a manifes- 
tation of the distinctive characteristics of the particular child ; third, a 
revelation on the instinctive plane of the essential nature of man, and a 
reflection of the course of human development. Let us consider these 
different aspects in detail. 

1. It is a truth, which we must never forget, that no one ever has, 
ever will or ever can really know anything except that which he has lived 
through. We comprehend what is around us only as we reproduce it in 
ourselves, and detect the outward signs of that only which we have in- 
wardly experienced. The proverbial wisdom of all nations " sets the 
thief to catch the thief." The sin hidden deep in our hearts starts with 
a guilty blush to our cheeks when confronted with its own image. To 
the eyes of love the world is full of lovers. The heart that has bled 
knows how to pity the bleeding heart. The soul that has been tempted 
grows strong to help. The great mystery of the Incarnation grows 
clear to our minds as we realize that only by becoming man could God 
lift men to himself. 

Deepest truths have widest reach, and we need have no hesitation in 
applying this insight to the child's delight in reproducing in his plays 
the life around him. The fact is so general that it scarcely needs illus- 
tration. A mother of my acquaintance was invited, in due form, by her 
little daughter to be present at the marriage ceremony of two of her 
dolls, and looking into the doll-house was amused to see a complete 
mimic representation of a wedding party. But what was her horror on 
the next day to find the wedding succeeded by a funeral, and twenty 
jointed dolls dressed in deep mourning and holding tiny handkerchiefs 
to their eyes, sitting round a cofl[in in which lay the same doll who had 
played the part of bride. I have seen a child not four years old repeat 
with her paper-dolls all the experiences of her own little life. A basin 
of water represented the ocean, a paper boat the steamer in which she 
had crossed the Atlantic, blocks arranged in different ways stood for 
different cities, and the little one's memories gathered themselves into 
a connected whole in her dramatic reproductions. I recall a little boy 
whose favorite amusement was to fasten himself to the hitching-2:)ost in 
front of his house, and there prance and rear and struggle to break 
loose, — another who, to the serious detriment of his clothes, would pin 
all the feathers he could find to his back, and then dig with hands and 
nails, imitating chickens in their search for food, — and a little girl, who, 
with wild desire to fly, spread her arms and jumped from the roof of a 
back building twelve feet high into the yard below. " What the child 
imitates," says Frdbel, " he is trying to understand." 

37 



578 THE MOTHER PLAY AXD NURSERY SONGS. 

2. This phase of play is, however, the least important one. A 
deeper value lies in the fact that through it tie child stamps kmi- 
self upon his experiences, and shows the form of his re-action against 
the external world. Deep in the heart of every man is hidden a some- 
thing which distinguishes him from all other men, a power of realizing 
universal truths in a particular form, a. capacity for adding himself to 
all that he receives, and organizing varied and conflicting experiences 
in the unity of his personality. This individual element is the one 
unchangeable fact about each one of us. Feelings may modify, opin- 
ions alter, bad tendencies be overcome and virtues conquered, but 
through all the undefinable something which makes a man himself 
remains. It determines the effect of external influences, makes the 
meat of one man the poison of another, teaches one man to love what 
another man hates, shows to one man beauties to which another is 
blind, and thrills one man with melodies to which another is deaf. It 
rushes into expression in the play of the child, in the song of the poet, 
in the system of the philosopher, and in the prayer of the saint. It 
wraps each man in mystery as in a garment, yet gives each man valid- 
ity among his fellow-men. In one woid it is the divine spark we bring 
with us into the world ; its burning is our being ; its shining is our life. 
How reverently then should w'e watch its first feeble glimmerings ! 
How jealously should we guard the child's play from any influences 
which might defeat its end. 

3. The third aspect of play had, however, the greatest charm for 
Frbbel, and he loved chiefly to trace in the games of children a reflec- 
tion of the progressive life of humanity. He draws a parallel between 
the child's love for running and wrestling, and for all games of physical 
prowess, and that first stage of human society when all men were hunt- 
ers, warriors and athletes. He connects the child's love for digging in 
the ground with that agricultural instinct which transformed nomadic 
tribes into nations of husbandmen. He shows us the germ of " rights 
and property " in the boy's love of ownership, opens our eyes to see in 
mud pies a faint struggle of the plastic instinct, persuades us to hear 
in the rhythmic cooing of the baby a prophecy of music, and bids us 
reverence the dawn of science in the eager habit of investigation. But 
he lingers most lovingly of all over those manifestations which reveal 
essential human nature and essential human connections, and never 
tires of following the soul as it struggles from darkness into light and 
comes to know its relations to natui-e, to man and to God. 

I have given this general outline of Frbbel's thought merely as a 
clew to his interpretations of infancy and childhood. He himself rarely 
stated his ruling ideas but always presupposed them. They were the 
air he breathed, the light he saw by. The real interest of his system 
is in its detail. The idea of organic connection was not new with him, 
neither can he be dismissed when we have traced his thought to this 
root. He has seen as no man ever saw into the heart of the child, and 



TPIE MOTHER PLAY AND NURSERY SONGS. 579 

he has traced, as no man before him had done, the subtle connections 
between what seems most trivial and what we all acknowledge to be 
most true. To give a few of these connections is the object of this 
chapter, — that some one may be led through what I write to read what 
Frdbel himself has written, — the hope that guides my pen. 

It is a rather striking fact that while the most obvious characteristic 
of every healthy child is its love of movement, it took all the scornful 
eloquence of Rousseau to tear oif the bandages which for generations 
mothers had wrapped tightly around the legs of their babies. It shows 
us that maternal instinct is not always to be trusted, and that in one 
case at least babyhood has profited by the generalizations of science. 
In all nature nothing develops without activity, — movement and life 
are almost synonymous terms. The visible world on which we gaze is 
only an expression of the activity of invisible forces, and " everything 
that is does not exist a single moment by itself, but only through a con- 
stant reciprocal action with all that surrounds it." Tirelessly the plan- 
ets circle in their course around the sun, — tirelessly the moving sap 
builds up the plant, and the blood in its circulation renews the life of 
the animal. Man cannot escape the universal law. To be strong and 
grow he must be active, and so nature who makes of every necessity an 
inftinct sends her children stretching and kicking into the world. 

Parallel with the child's joy in movement is his delight in moving 
objects. Keenly alive himself, he rejoices in the external sign of life. 
The life within him recognizes the life without, and as he watches the 
galloping horse, sees the bird flying through the air, or tries to catch 
the little fish that darts under the water, he feels in each a something 
akin to himself. His pleasure is great in proportion as the activity he 
sees is strong and free ; impeded movement wakes in him always some 
measure of discontent. 

But life not only recognizes life, it tends also to project itself, and 
the child communicates his own vitality even to inanimate objects. He 
whips the naughty stool over which he stumbles, pats the stick which 
he bestrides, and chatters incessantly to his unresponsive playthings. 
Whatever he feels within him he imputes to the objects around him, 
and for him there exists nothing that is not alive. 

It is interesting, as throwing light upon this vitalizing tendency of 
childhood, to remember that the earliest form of religion is always 
fetichism, and that the essence of fetichism is worship of the principle 
of life in the individual forms. It is interesting also to notice that sci- 
ence in its first crude form ascribes validity to isolated objects, and very 
slowly grows into the knowledge that things are only vanishing phases 
of forces. But most significant of all is the realization that the deepest 
truth is dimly shadowed in these imperfect forms, aud that when Phi- 
losophy has read the " open secret of the Universe," she confirms the 
instinct of the child and the savage and declares again the Universal 
Life. Frobel believed that the painful struggle which in history has 



580 THE MOTHER PLAT AXD NURSERY SONGS. 

marked the transition from the cruder to the more perfect insight might 
be spared the individual if the child's presentiments of the real truth 
of things were rightly understood and fostered. Who can say that he 
may not be right ? 

If I have made my meaning thus far clear, it will be seen that these 
three manifestations of the child, — love of movement, delight in mov- 
ing objects, and the imputing of life to inanimate things, — all have one 
source, viz. : the life of the child ; and that the end, of which th^ 
are the beginning, is reached when life culminates in consciousness 
and creation, and when the world is recognized as a reflection of the life 
of God. The connection is real though remote, and gives significance 
to the simplest efforts to meet the indicated needs. Hence Frobel's 
followers study with reverence the little games in v.hich the child rep- 
resents by the movement of his hands, arms or fingers, the swimming 
of fishes, the flying of birds, the trotting of horses, the circular motion 
of the mill wheel or the swift turning of the weathercock. In each 
game a particular movement is emphasized, and from this standpoint 
we see in these simple exercises the germ of gymnastics and the begin- 
ning of definite physical training, while, on the other hand, through the 
representation of the life around him, the child's sympathies are quick- 
ened and his observation roused. The baby who has played that he is 
a little bird will notice the next bird he sees with keener interest ; he 
has made the life of the bird his own, transubstantiated it as it were 
into his own flesh and blood. Frobel thinks too, that the representa- 
tion of movement stirs a presentiment of its cause, and that thus the 
mind is prepared for transition from the seen to the unseen, from 
objects to forces and from form to life. It is scarcely necessary to add 
that all these games are accompanied by simple words, which, reacting 
on the child's thought, interpret to him his action, and that these words 
are set to simple tunes intended to stir a feeling corresponding to act 
and thought. 

I translate Frobel's comments on the game of the weathercock and 
the game of the fishes as an illustration of his manner of treating them 
all. 

In the game of the weathercock the forearm of the child is held as 
nearly as possible in an upright position, and the hand extended so that 
the four fingers represent the tail of the weathercock, the palm his 
body and the thumb his neck and head. In this position the hand is 
slowly moved to and fro, while the mother sings : 

As the cock upon the tower 
Turns himself in wind and shower, 
So you can turn your little hand 
While like the tower you steady stand. 

" This play," you say, " is so very simple." True, yet it always de- 
lights your child. See, not with what pleasure only, but with what 



THE MOTHER PLAY AND NURSERY SONGS. 581 

earnestness he moves his little hand when you bid him show how the 
weathercock turns. Why is he so pleased and yet so serious ? Have 
you not noticed that when you hold a moving object before your child 
in such a way that the moving cause is not apparent, that to search 
for this moving cause gives the child more pleasure than the moving 
object itself? His pleasure in moving his hand has the same basis. He 
feels and controls the source of a movement, the cause of an effect ; it 
is this which fills him with such serious joy. He is experiencing the 
fact that a moving object has its ground in a movwg force, soon he will 
conclude that living objects have their ground in living forces. 

So far Frobel in explanation of the baby. The rest of the commen- 
tary traces in an older child the development of feeling into partial 
insight. 

On a windy, almost stormy day, the children follow their busy 
mother as she goes out of doors and hangs up the clothes she has 
been washing that they may dry. Where will not children love to 
follow when the busy mother leads ! 

Hark how the weathercock creaks on the tower ; the wind moves it 
now here, now there. Here comes a hen and cock ; they are not turned 
around like the weathercock, but the wind blows the feathers in their 
tails from side to side. Hear how the clothes rustle on the line ; they 
rustle loudly as though telling a story of the strong wind. The rust- 
ling delights the children. Quickly the boy fastens a cloth to his stick 
and high in the air it waves and chatters of the wind ; so too waves 
the handkerchief in the little girl's outstretched hand. But higher and 
freer than cloth or handkerchief the kite sails through the air. See 
its proud owner as with face aglow he watches it rise towards the sky ! 
Clap, clap, clap, how the wind drives the windmill round and round, 
and behold, hearing the sound out runs a little boy with his paper wind- 
mill which turns more and more swiftly as he runs fast and ever faster. 
The mother yonder can scarcely guard her baby daughter from the 
force of the storm, and the man has hard work to keep his balance and 
not stagger in the raging wind ! 

" Mother this is a very fierce wind ; it makes everything bend and 
shake. See how little sister's hair is flying, and how the clothes dance 
on the line. Where does the wind come from, mother, and how does it 
make things rustle and flutter ? " "If I were to try to tell you, my child, 
how the wind comes you would not understand me ; but this much you 
can understand even now. A strong power like this wind can do many 
things great and small, and you see these though you cannot see the 
wind itself. There are many gi-eat powers which we know of though 
we cannot see them. See, your little hand moves but you cannot 
see the power that moves it. Begin by believing in power ; later 
you will understand better whence it comes ; but you will never, never 
see it." 

In the fish game which is a great favorite, the child represents the 



582 THE MOTHER PLAY AND NURSERY SONGS. 

swimming of the fishes by a very rapid movement of the fingers. The 
words sung are : 

See how within the sliallow stream 

The silvery little fishes gleam ; 

See how they dart along the ground 

Chasing each other round ami round. 

Frobel's explanation refers to the pleasure of children in watching 
the real fish dart through the water, with which experience the game is 
obviously connected. 

" Birds and fishes, fishes and birds, these give the child a pleasure 
which is always fresh. Why ? — Is it not because they seem so independ- 
ent in their movement, and the water and air in which they move are so 
clear and pure? Purity, freedom and unimpeded activity, — these are 
the sources of the child's joy and the needs of his soul. And yet there 
is nothing the child likes better than to chase the bird and catch the 
fish. Is not that a contradiction ? Nay, mother, to me it seems not so. 
In the bird your child is trying to catch the bird's free flight, in the 
fish his quick and joyous motion. But the fish and bird when caught 
give no gladness. Within must freedom be won, within must activity 
be developed, within must purity be felt as the atmosphere of life. Try, 
mother, to bring these truths in faintest forebodings near to your child, 
and they shall be in him a well-spring of peace and joy." 

It was Frobel's recognition of the child's love of movement and mov- 
ing objects which led him to choose the ball as his first plaything. As 
the separate faculties of the child sleep in the unity of his unconscious 
life, and this life shows itself in a general and indefinite activity, so the 
qualities of all material things are embodied in the ball and express 
their harmonious union in its extreme moveableness. The ball is thus 
the external counterpart of the child, its unity corresponding to his be- 
ing, its ready moveableness to his intense life, and its indefiniteness mak- 
ing it the fit medium for the expression of his indefinite thought. He 
rolls it, he tosses it, he bounces it ; fastened to a string he moves it up 
and down, right and left, round and round. He makes it creep like 
the mouse, fly like the bird, swim like the fish, climb like the squirrel. 
Soon he begins to notice form ; apples, peaches, cherries, marbles, are 
round like his ball, and gradually by instinctive comparison of balls of 
different colors he recognizes color and abstracts it from form. His 
ball is thus, as Frdbel says, a key to the outward world and an awakener 
of the mind. He both sees himself in it and expresses himself through 
it, and through this reflection and expression learns to know himself 
and the world around him. Herein lies its charm for the children of 
all races and ages, and we are not surprised to find balls even among 
the remains of such a primitive people as the lake dwellers of Switzer- 
land. Instinctive choices show universal needs and adaptations. 

I am almost ashamed to add that Frobel did not mean that babies 
should have object lessons on form, color and movement given through 
the ball, yet it seems necessary to do so when he is gravely accused of 



THE MOTHEU PLAY AND NURSERY SONGS. 583 

this intention, and when some who call themselves his followers have 
perverted the ball to this use. Frdbel meant the child to play with 
the ball just as freely and instinctively as the kitten does, but he wished 
the mother to know and jioint the meaning of this play, helping the 
young mind thus to accumulate experiences and develop energies. 

Another peculiarity* of childlujod, upon which Frobel lays great 
stress, is the feeling of nearness to distant objects. " Heaven," says 
Wordsworth, " lies around us in our infancy." " We know not of changes, 
we dream not of spaces," writes Mrs. Browning, describing babyhood, 
and she adds a few lines farther on, " We dream we can touch all the 
stars that we see." Frobel tells with great sympathy the story of a 
little boy who tried to climb to the moon, and we can all recall illustrtv- 
tions of the childish insensibility to distance, the instinctive feeling of 
connection with what is most remote. This is the germ from which 
Frobel would develop gradually a deep intuition of tlie oneness of 
life, — leading from the form in which the feeling is false to the form in 
which it embodies the highest truth. Science tells us that " if a single 
grain of sand were destroyed the universe would collapse," and the 
deepest utterance of spiritual insight is " I and my Father are one." 
If unity and connection are truths of nature and of man must not 
forebodings of them haunt the mind from birth? And, again referring 
to history for a parallel, is it not fraught with meaning that man's first 
momiment should be a tower which he vainly hoped miglit connect the 
earth and sky ? 

The most obvious and significant parallel between the development 
of the race and the individual lies in the gradual expansion of human 
relations. History shows us families growing into tribes, — tribes ex- 
panding and combining into nations, — nations waking to the recogni- 
tion of mutual dependence, — the idea of the organic unity of mankind 
dawning slowly in the consciousness of man, — the brotherhood of 
man finding its cause and explanation in the fatherhood of God. So 
the physical union with the mother, in which individual life begins, 
vanishes in a deeper union of sympathy and love, and love thus awak- 
ened extends itself to father, sister, brother, companions, friends, home, 
country, humanity and God. Each phase of this progressive develop- 
ment rests upon that which went before, and determines tliat which 
shall come after; and Frobel had no hesitation in connecting the first 
smile with which the baby responds to his mother's tenderness with 
that devout assurance of union with God which fears neither height 
nor depth, neither life nor death, neither things present nor things to 
come. No wonder that He whose life was the revelation of life's deep- 
est truth, and with whom the beginning and the end were one, should 
exclaim with terrible emphasis, " It were better for thee that a millstone 
were hanged about thy neck, and thou wert cast into the depths of the 
sea, than that thou shouldst offend one of these little ones." 

No person can visit a foundling asylum without being struck with 



584 THE MOTHER PLAY AND NURSERY SONGS. 

the listless and indifferent expression of the baby faces. During a 
visit of more than an hour to the celebrated asylum in St. Petersburg, 
where a thousand babies are cared for, I neither saw a single smile nor 
heard a single cry. It seemed as though the babies were hopelessly bewil- 
dered by the number and variety of the faces around them. We have all 
noticed how a strange face will make a baby cr^, and how restless and 
irritable even older children are in the midst of strange surroundings. 
Yet how many, especially among the rich, drag their little children 
from place to place, confusing the tender minds with rapidly succeeding 
impressions, and dissipating feeling in a thousand frivolous channels, 
instead of concentrating it within the narrow limits of a happy home. 

According to Frobel, when the child has learned to stand and walk 
alone he comes to the first crisis in his history. From a state of com- 
plete physical union with his mother he has passed into a state of rela- 
tive independence. If his affections have been roused as his sense of 
personality has developed, — if he has learned to love his mother while 
learning to separate liimself from her, — then the best foundation for 
moral and social relationships has been securely laid. Separation 
should tend always to a deeper union. The baby's first tottering steps 
should be always towards his mother's outstretched arms and loving 
heart. 

Who that has ever tried to amuse a baby has not played the Hiding 
Game ? How many of us have ever analyzed the secret of its fascina- 
tion? You throw a handkerchief over your own face, or over the 
baby's, only to snatch it away the next minute, and the child seems 
never to tire of this simple alternation of hiding and finding. What- 
ever gives constant pleasure is in some way connected with develop- 
ment, and this simple game illustrates the universal law which lifts 
feelings into consciousness by contrasting them with their opposites. 
" Why is it," Frobel asks the mother, " that your baby loves to hide ? 
He might lie unhidden in your arms, on your knee, close to your heart, 
and, lying thus, see ever your eyes looking back into his own. Does 
he want to conceal himself from you — to be separated from you ? God 
forbid ! He hides himself for the happiness of being found, and seeks 
instinctively, through momentary alienation, to quicken and intensify 
his feeling of union with you." For the same reason, the older child 
loves the fairy-tales which lift him out of his own life. The youth 
needs travel in strange lands in order to understand his own. Educar 
tion immerses the student in the past that he may truly read the secret 
of the present, and God teaches his children the deepest mysteries of 
love and life through sorrow and death. In all attempts to apply this 
law, the important thing is to remember that alienation is always 
means to an end. The child may dwell on wonders until his own life 
seems vapid to him; the youth, by too long absence from his country, 
may wreck his patriotism ; the student may lose himself so completely 
in the past that he can never find himself in the present ; and selfish- 



THE MOTHER PLAT AND NURSERY SONGS. 585 

ness too often perverts the lessons of grief. The truth lies not in con- 
trasts, but in their mediation, and Frobel is careful to point out to the 
mother the injury she may do her child if she fails to respond to the joy 
he feels in liis renewed and intensified union with her. " You must keep 
on saying, ' Darling, I'm so glad, so glad to see you,' " said a dear little 
girl to me, one day, when, after playing hide-aiid-seek for a long time, 
my attention began to wander. Her disappointed face showed what 
the recoyiiiition meant to her, and I learned a lesson I can never forget. 

To my mind, one of the most suggestive connections which Fiobel 
has traced is that between the cuckoo game and conscience. The game 
itself is very simple. The child hides, and, while hidden, calls 
" Cuckoo ! cuckoo ! " to the mother who hunts for him. When she 
has found him, she must hide, and her voice, calling " Cuckoo ! " to 
him, gives him a hint in what direction to look for her. " Do you 
say/' asks Frobel, *' that there is no difference between this and the 
simple hiding-game ? In its essence it is very different from the hiding- 
game, though nearly related to it. It is its expansion and develop- 
ment, and, practically, appears later among the favorite plays of the 
child. What, then, is the difference between the two, and wherein lies 
the essence of progressive development in the latter? Observe the 
plays of your child carefully, wise mother, and you will see the differ- 
ence clearly. In the first game, separation and union appear as oppo- 
sites, that each may be more consciously felt ; in the second, through 
the cuckoo call, these opposites are mediated. The characteristic of 
the cuckoo play is, union in separation, and separation in union — and 
in this peculiarity lies its abiding charm. But the consciousness of union 
in separation, and of separation (i. e., personality^ in union, is the essence 
and basis of conscience. In other words, the voice of conscience is the 
eternal proclamation of man's relationship to God. 

" Deep meaning oft lies hid in childish play." The microscope, re- 
vealing an unseen world, has led to some of the most important dis- 
coveries of science, and, if we rightly read the instinctive life of the 
child, we cannot fail to find in it prophecies of the conscious life of the 
man. In the case just cited, the course of development is clear. 
Through play the mother teaches her child to listen for and love her 
voice. By sharing his small pleasures she lifts him into sympathy with 
her. The sympathy thus awakened inclines him to obedience when 
the same voice which delighted him in calling " Cuckoo ! " bids him 
do this or that. The mother thus becomes her child's external con- 
science, and loving obedience to her wise commands prepares him, as 
he grows older, to hearken reverently to the voice within. Finally, as 
he listens to his conscience, he learns to know his God ; through doing 
the right, is led infallibly to recognize the true. For, as goodness is the 
active phase of truth, and truth the intellectual phase of goodness, 
right action must culminate in clear vision, and the pure in heart will 
always see God. 



586 THE MOTHER PLAT AND NURSERY SONGS. 

Having traced spiritual insight back into its unseen beginnings, let 
us honestly face the question whether a soul may not fail to find its 
Grod because a baby's heart has failed to find its mother. Frobel has 
no doubt about the answer. " The feeling of oneness with a loving 
mother," he says, "is the germ from which springs the feeling of union 
with God," and adds, " If the infant be not religious, hardly will the 
man become so." Obviously, the question is not one of religious teach- 
ing, which the young child cannot understand, but of a religious life, 
which, according to his powers, he can and ought to lead. " Do the 
works," said the Savior of men, " and thou shalt know the doctrine, 
whether it be of God." " If a man," wrote the beloved disciple, " love 
not his brother, whom he hath seen, how can he love God, whom he 
hath not seen ? " 

These two verses state the double condition of religious insight — 
divine love symbolized in human relations, and practical personal ac- 
tion and experience as the basis of a living creed. The infant brings 
his religious nature with him into the world. The soul which came 
forth from God hears within it the yearning after God. If this were 
not so, religion, at any period of life, would be an impossibility ; as it 
is so, religious training should begin with the beginning of life, and a 
connected sequence of religious experiences culminates gradually in re- 
ligious insight. Small chance, therefore, of true and happy religion 
for the man whose childish hands were never folded in prayer, whose 
slumbers were never soothed by sweet hymns, and the echoes of whose 
soul were never wakened by the upward glance, the kneeling attitude, 
and the devout tones of faith. Smaller chance still for him who can 
remember no love and care which typified, however imperfectly, the 
love of the universal Father. One law applies to every phase of human 
development, and as we learn to stand by standing, to work by work- 
ing, and to love by loving, so we learn religion by being religious. 

Probably all who remember their childhood remember the game of 
The Three Knights. In it one child personates the mother, three chil- 
dren represent knights, and all the rest of the players are children 
whom the knights want to carry away and the mother is unwilling to 
give up. The charm of the game is in the struggle of the knights and 
the mother over each particular child. Who does not see at once the 
instinct in which this game has its root ? 

"With the gradually-dawning sense of personality there dawns also in 
the child's mind the desire to be loved. Recognizing himself, he wants 
recognition ; feeling his distinctness, he feels also his dependence. 
This is a most important moment in life. When a child begins to 
want love, he will value that in himself which attracts love. In large 
measure, therefore, his standard will be fixed by the praise and blame, 
the sympathies and aversions, of those around him. 

The game of the knights expresses the child's felt need of love, but 
does not show how he may be lovable. Like all the blind gropings of 



THE MOTHER PLAY AND NURSERY SONGS. 587 

instinct it indicates an end it cannot attain. Frdbel lifts it into com- 
pleteness, and makes it an efficient means of developing the good in the 
child by changes which deepen its fascination while revealing the con- 
nection between goodness and love, — between what the child is and the 
feeling others will have for him. 

In his commentary on the game, Frbbel shows how much harm is 
done little children by the undue emphasis placed on externals. What 
a beautiful child ! Let me kiss his rosy cheeks ! What pretty, curly 
hair I What a lovely dress I What will people think of you with your 
torn dress and dirty face ? Are not these fair samples of the praise 
and blame given little children ? Then what should we expect of them 
but that they would value these things supremely ? 

Love of approbation is a root which may bear either a healthful or a 
poisonous fruit. It has its deep source in the relationships of human 
souls to each other and to God. Consequently, it is perverted with the 
pei'version of these relationships, and iu the hearts of sinful men in a 
wicked world, is more often a power of evil than of good. W^e call the 
man who rises above the moral ideal of his age, a saint, and the ex- 
treme rarity of his appearance shows how largely the universal con- 
science determines the particular, how the tainted life-blood of humanity 
infects the life of each individual man. 

This, of course, just means that we can only help others by being 
what we ought, ourselves. Our partial insights are the result of our 
partial being. Our feeble lives are the projection of our own feeble- 
ness. Our failure to influence comes from our failure to be. The 
mother who plants vanity, instead of aspiration, in her child's heart, by 
praising his looks more than his moral effort, and noticing his clothes 
more than his character, does so because in her own heart that which 
is seen and temporal has greater control than that which is unseen and 
eternal. Ask her what she most desires for her child and she will tell 
you that he may be good. Question her life and you will find that 
goodness, to her, means conformity to the external standard set up by 
the society in which she moves. Watch her daily actions and you will 
see her putting appearance before reality, striving rather to seem than 
to be, valuing reputation rather than character, prizing in all things the 
effect instead of the essence. Our praise and blame, our love and hate, 
cannot rise higher than ourselves, and it is because we must speak as 
we are that our idle words tell against us in the judgment. To play 
the simplest of Frobel's games, in the right spirit, demands a soul pure 
in its purpose and constant in its struggle, and a rooted conviction that 
the life is more than meat, and the body greater than raiment. 

To the need of being loved, corresponds the need of loving. The 
loving heart shows itself in loving actions. If we want to strengthen 
love we must do the acts which love commands. The feeling which 
does not express itself in action, dies. Frdbel lays great stress upon 
these simple thoughts. The basket game is one of many, iu which he 



588 THK MOTHER PLAY AND NURSERY SONGS. 

shows how even a biil)y may do Hoiiietliing for others. "Make <a basket 
for papa," says the mother, and while tlie l)aby twines his little fingers 
in and out in imitation of weaving, she sings : 

Wo tho Bloiulor twigs aro inking, 

And nice littlo baukuts iiiftklug. 

From tlio lovely rcjHy bowcrn, 

Wo will 1111 it with Mwoot Uowers. 

Lu, la, la, la. La, la, la, la. Givo it to papa. 

Even the veryyonng child can share his food, can water flowers, can 
givi) milk to his cat, can throw crumbs to liis chickens, can pick up liis 
mamma's handkerchief, can meet his papa at tho door when he comes 
home from work. Wlio does not feel that if we would train the little 
children to do these little things we should strengthen them for tho 
heavier duties of later life? 

The instinct of children is to share the life around them. Little 
girls are (sager to help in the work of tlie house, to sweep, dust, cook, 
sew, or do anything tliat older people aro doing. The boy will follow 
his father to the farm, to the forgo, to the shop, and is proud and happy 
to be of the least use. How often do father and mother reject the weak 
but willing help of the little child 1 How often do they complain bitterly 
of the laziness, selfishness and indifference of tho older son or daughter I 

As the child's intercuts and sympathies exi)and, he comes to notice 
the din'c-n'ut atitivities of men. With the presentiment that he, too, ia 
boi II to lie a worker in the world, he eagerly watches the world's work. 
And not content with watching, he tries to imitate. The baby will try 
to follow the motions of those ho sees working. The older child digs 
and plants, makes liouses in the sand, floats his tiny boat on tho water, 
and dams the stream to turn his toy miU. Frobel responds to the effort 
of the baby by a series of dramatic games, representing tho movements 
peculiar to different kinds of work, and to tho need of tho older child, 
by the gifts and occupations of the kindergarten, tlirough which he is 
enabled to imitate all kinds of technical and artistic processes. 

The importance of industrial education is every day more widely 
admitted. That Frolxd has found tho trno! beginning of tochnical 
training, is also quite generally recognized. It is one of the important 
features of his system that a definite training of the hand is begun in 
babyiiood. There aro games to strengthen and give freedom to the 
wrist, there are games to discii)line the muscles of the arm, there are 
games to teach force and flexibility to the fingers. The hand is man's 
first and most imj)ortant tool. It cannot be too early taught to obey 
his thought and execute his will. We shall have no large class of 
skilled workmen until wo learn from Frobel how to keep iiands from 
growing clumsy, and fingers from getting stiff. 

Tho most fascinating feature of Frobel's games to a thoughtful per- 
son is, however, their reaction on thought. They aro root(!(l, every one 
of them, in tho relationsliip of feeling, action, and thought; they obey, 



THE MOTHER PLAY AND NURSERY SONGS. 589 

without oxception, that deep l;iw wliicli connects iiiHtinct, expression 
and insight. Ilowthrongli tixiir contrasts the activity of comparison is 
roused ; how they quicken and intensify perception, wliat presentiments 
they create of the subtle rekitionsliips of sound and movement ; — how 
they stir in the child the sense of proportion, — how they show the soul 
of harmony in the relation of numbers, — how they foreshadow even 
the mysterious correspondence of sj)ace and time; — all these things and 
many, many others can only bo realized l)y those who, believing that in 
the night of unconsciousness sliinib(!r ail the possibiliti(!s of the poet 
and the philosopher, will have patience to watch witli Friibel for the 
dawning of the soul's light. 

The opponents of the Kindergarten have indulged in a great deal of 
scorn fid mirth over what they have been pleased to call its false and 
pernicious symbolism. Can that be seriously called an educational 
system, they ask, which allows balls to be called fishes, and frogs, cats 
and squirrels, — which sees in little match-like sticks trees and lamp- 
posts and soldiers, — which makes the same block stand for a house, a 
chair and a sheep, and even uses the child's fingers to represent his 
grandmother, his parents and his brothers and sisters? 

Again Frobel appeals from the scorn of his critics to the history of 
the race, and the instinctive manifestations of the child. lie hears 
untutored men call the brave man, a lion, — the meek man, a lamb, — 
the cunning man, a fox. He hears the savage describe his face not as 
round but as moon, and say of his fruit that it is sugar-cane instead of 
paying that it is sweet. lie finds among the monuments of ancient 
art three cubes standing side by sid(!, inscribed with the names of the 
three Graces. lie studies reverently Egypt's great unsolved problems 
as they are imaged in the pyramids and the sphinx. IIo reads the 
spirit's faint intuition of immortality in the mysterious phoenix. 
Finding everywhere that man has sought to express in symbols the 
truths he feels, but does not understand, he turns his eyes upon the 
child to seek in his instinctive life another parallel with the develop- 
ment of mankind. 

At once he notices the tendency of childhood to detect and delight 
in the most remote resemblances. " Father and mother stars," calls 
out a two-year-old baby on seeing in the sky two large, bright stars in 
the midst of a number of small ones. " Dust on the water," exclaims 
a boy of four, as standing on the sea-shore he is blinded by the mist 
and spray. " Let me catch the bird," cries the little girl, as she watches 
with delight the flickering reflection of the sunlight on the wall. Illus- 
trations might be multiplied, but we flo not need them. We have all 
seen the boy ride his father's cane and call it a horse ; we have watched 
many a little giil caress the towel she has rolled and wrapped for her 
baby ; we know how to the imagination of the child " the rose leans 
over to kiss baby rose-bud," and " God sends the little star baby, 'cause 
the moon was so lonely in the sky." 



590 THE MOTHER PLAY AND NURSERY SONGS. 

The symbolic stage of thought is characterized by the perception of 
resemblances, without abstraction of the qualities in which the resem- 
blance lies. When the child calls the quivering reflection of the sun- 
light a bird he shows us that he has been struck chiefly with the bird's 
swift motion, but at the same time has not learned to consider motion 
as an abstraction. He has seized the bird in the quality motion, but 
holds this motion in identity with the bird. 

So, too, it is through the creeping, swimming and climbing motions 
that he identifies the cat, the fish and the squirrel with his ball. His 
sticks stand for trees, lamp-posts and soldiers through the quality of 
straightness, and his many fingers on one hand suggest the merging of 
father, mother and children in the unity of the family. 

It is a fact full of deep meaning that the obscure thought or feeling 
recognizes itself in a symbol, and cannot recognize itself in a definite 
and exact reflection. We need a mirror, not of what we are, but of 
what we already dimly see ourselves to be. This is the reason that 
the child's life grows clearer to him through the life of birds and 
animals than through the human life around him. He is drawn closer 
to his mother by watching the cat with her kittens, or the mother-bird 
with her young, than he is by seeing other children with their mothers. 
It is no idle curiosity which bids him peer into the bird's nest and 
watch so intently while the mother-bird feeds her young or covers them 
with her sheltering wings. He is fascinated because thus his own life 
is made objective to him, his own relationships are shown to him in 
symbol. Let us be glad then that Frobel shows the baby how to make 
nests with his little hands, how to represent the fluttering young birds 
with his fat thumbs, and how to love his own mother more as she sings 
to him. of the mother-bird. 

The child not only expresses himself symbolically, but is quick to in- 
terj)ret the symbolism of nature. If on the one hand we recognize that he 
must represent before he can imderstand, and know that the analogies 
which underlie his action will in due course develop comparison and 
abstraction, can we doubt on the other that the types of nature will 
reveal their archetypes, and the material symbol vanish in the spiritual 
reality. Looking into the past we find that all the phenomena of 
nature have been worshiped by men ; that the human heart has bowed 
itself to sun and moon, to mountains and rivers, to beasts, and even to 
the most disgusting reptiles. We remember the thunders and lightning 
of Sinai ; the mystery of the burning bush and the pillar of cloud and 
of fire. We know that to-day the oldest of Christian churches cele- 
brates her mysteries in symbolic forms and services, and the universal 
heart of Christendom concentrates its deepest feelings and intuitions 
in the symbol of the cross. From all these things may we not infer 
deep analogies between the outer and the inner world ; between the 
truths God writes in human hearts, and those he proclaims througli the 
thousand voices of earth, and believe that by a process we cannot trace, 



THE MOTHER PLAY AND NURSERY SONGS. 591 

the mind may move from the perception of the symbol to the conscious 
realization of the truth symbolized ? Such, at least, was Frobel's firm 
conviction ; and we find him consequently in many of his little plays 
directing attention to the natural symbols of great truths, leading the 
child to love the light, teaching him reverence for unseen forces, mak- 
ing him feel the unity that underlies variety, and stirring within him a 
prophetic certainty of complete self-recognition. 

A single illustration must suffice to indicate this phase of Frobel's 
thought. To many, I fear, it will prove a stumbling-block ; to many 
others, foolishness. To those only will it commend itself, who, realiz- 
ing that all things are connected, know that nothing is insignificant. 

" It is my firm conviction," writes he, " that whatever gives the 
child pure and persistent pleasure is, however, remotely connected with 
some deep truth of his nature, and has in it a germ of highest possi- 
bilities." In the light of this faith look at the shadow pictures on the 
walll 

" Between the bright light which shines on the smooth, white wall, is 
thrust a dark object, and straightway appears the form which so de- 
lights the child. This is the outward fact; what is the truth which 
through this fact is dimly hinted to the prophetic mind ? Is it not the 
creative and transforming power of light, that power which brings form 
and color out of dark chaos and makes the beauty which gladdens our 
hearts ? Is it not more than this, a foreshadowing, perhaps, of the spirit- 
ual fact that our darkest experiences may project themselves in forms 
that will delight and bless, if back of them in our hearts shines the 
light of God. Stern bare rocks and forbidding clefts grow beautiful in 
the sunlight, and the fairest landscape loses life, beauty and expression 
in the darkness. Is it not thus also with our lives ? Yesterday they 
seemed to us full of beauty and of hope ; to-day we see nothing but 
struggle and pain ; yesterday we felt within us great possibilities ; to- 
day we stagger under doubts, and groan in the darkness of our souls. 
Only clear conviction that it is the darkness within us which makes the 
darkness without, and that all lives are beautiful when lived in the light 
of God's idea of them, can restore the lost peace of our souls. Be it 
therefore, oh mother, your sacred duty to make your child feel early the 
working both of the outer and the inner light. Let him see in one the 
symbol of the other, and tracing form and color to their source in the 
sun, may he learn to trace the beauty and meaning of his life to their 
source in God." 

The analogy between light and truth has always been most deeply 
felt by the most spiritual minds. The Magi said of God that " He had 
light for his body and truth for his soul." The Psalmist exclaims, 
" Thou hast covered thyself with light as with a garment. Christ tells 
us that " God is light and in Him is no darknesss at all ; " and St. John 
wi'iting of that state where we shall have done with all symbols because 



592 THE MOTHER PLAY AND NURSERY SONGS. 

completely penetrated with the realities they represent, declares that 
" The city hath no need of the sun, neither of the moon to lighten it." 

If the connection is thus real will it not make itself felt ? May not 
the heart of the child thrill, as the heart of mankind has done, in re- 
sponse to the objective expression of its inward need ? May not a child- 
hood of spiritual presentiments best prepare for a manhood of spiritual 
innights? 

As has been already repeatedly stated, Frbbel's life and thought were 
ruled by the idea of organic unity. That all-pervading law of organ- 
ism by which they progress from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, 
and realize the highest unity through the extreme of variety, was ever 
present in his mind, and his ideal consequently was the complete devel- 
opment of the individual man for the sake of all men. Therefore he 
aimed through self-activity to develop powers ; through love to conse- 
crate them to service ; through service to lift them into consciousness. 
To know himself man must feel and know all his relationships, and 
he learns the sweetness and solemnity of his life only by realizing its 
connections with nature, with man, and with God. 

In view of this vital truth Frobel insists that from the beginning of 
life the child shall be led to see and feel connections and dependences. 
As these connections exist in the least things they can be shown in the 
least things, and the habit of mind thus formed will extend itself to 
greater things as the child's powers strengthen and his experiences en- 
large. An instinct of this connection underlies the favorite game of all 
nurseries, " Pat-a-cake," in which the mother shows the child that with- 
out the baker he could not have his cake ; Frobel seizes this hint and 
develops it. For the cake the child depends on the baker, the baker on 
the miller, the miller on the farmer, the farmer on the sunshine and the 
rain. In another game called " Grass-mowing," the same general idea 
is carried out. The motion of the game represents the mowing of the 
grass. The words tell how the baby loves milk, how the milk comes 
from the cow, the cow must be fed witb. the grass the mower reaps. 
God sends the sunlight and the rain to make the grass grow. In still 
another play Frobel unites in one all the little games the child has 
learned. I give the words which accompany this game only adding 
that the particular motion associated with each separate game, is re- 
peated when that game is referred to. Thus the child connects his iso" 
latecl experiences into a whole, and begins to organize his memories. 

MOTTO FOR THE INIOTHER. 
"Whatever singly thou hast played, 
Blay in one charming whole be made. 
The child alone delights to play, 
But better still with comrades gay. 
The single flower we love to view, 
Still more the wreath of varied hue. 
In this and all the child may find 
The least within the whole combined." 



THE MOTHER PLAT AND NUKSERY SONGS. S93 

SONG. 
Two hands! thereon eight fingers are ; 
Two thumbs the two grandmothers are. 
They've come to make each other a call, 
'Tis long since they have met at all. 
They bid each other welcome. 
Oh welcome ! Oh, welcome ! 
Such bowings and such greetings ! 
Such glad and tender meetings ! 
They talk as if they would never rest ; 
They tell of the basket, the eggs in the nest ; 
They tell of the doves and the pigeon house, 
How they fly in and out in gay carouse. 
They tell of the little fishes gay, 
In the sparkling water floating away. 
The baker and little patty-cakes ; 
The target the good brother makes. 
Now, when they've reviewed their plays all through, 
They ask each other what next they shall do — 
The fingers say " To the steeple we'll go ! " 
But the little grandmothers they say no ! 
In the church door the grandmothers go. 

We build up the future on the past ; we look back that we may 
move forward, we grow strong for what is to be by seeing clearly what 
has been. Hence the great value of history. Hence, too, the strength 
of those, who, from time to time, pause in life to collect the results of 
living! 

To most of us, however, perhaps to all of us, the first few years of 
life are a blank in memory. We wake to consciousness with definite 
feelings, thoughts and tendencies. Whence sprang the feelings ? how 
grew the thoughts? what fixed the tendencies? we ask in vain. Over 
the sources of life roll the silent waves of unconsciousness, and memory- 
loses itself in a beginning when " all was without form and void, and! 
darkness was upon the face of the deep." 

How much it would add to the power and beauty of our lives if this- 
lost connection could at least be partially restored? Would we not 
better understand what we are, by knowing how we came to be? 
Might not a wise and tender mother, by watching her child, trace the 
dawning of his conscious life? might she not, by sacredly guarding in 
her heart and mind his small experiences, reconstruct for him the past 
he cannot remember ? Ought not the first history a child learns be his 
own? 

The final purpose of the " Mother-Play and Nursery Songs " is to give 
the child this history of his life. The baby trained in obedience to its 
wise suggestions, now grown to a child six years old, sees himself and 
his past in its pictures, and understands himself through his mother's 
explanation of them. On one page he is making a basket for his papa, 
on another he is calling the chickens, on still another he is watching 
and stretching out his hands to the moon. Into the general experi- 
ences it treasures up, the mother weaves particular facts out of his own 

38 



594 THE MOTHER PLAY AND NURSERY SONGS. 

little life. Fiobel has mirrored the life of childhood ; the mother learns 
from him how to mirror the life of her child. 

The human mind has two ruling passions : to know itself and to 
express its knowing ; being and doing, seeing and telling, insight and 
creation, are inseparable necessities of the soul. Feeling acts on 
thought, thought reacts on feeling, both complete themselves in action, 
which again reacts on them. Obedience to the truth we know is a key 
to the truth yet hidden, embodiment of the beauty we inwardly see, a 
revelation of the beauty yet unseen, expression of our total being 
the one way of learning what we are. This mutual dependence of the 
inward and outward is constantly before the mind of Frobel, and I find 
it significant that in the last two songs of the Mother-Play he indicates 
on the one hand the culmination of insight in the vision of God, and 
on the other the culmination of expression in artistic creation. The 
one calls the attention of the little child to the sound of the church 
bell, and bids him watch the people who go to thank Him who made 
the flowers and birds, who taught sun, moon and stars to shine, who 
gave the baby to his mamma, and his mamma to him, and who loves 
all the little children in the world more, even, than their mammas love 
them. The other, detecting the child's need to collect and embody 
what he has observed and felt, bids the mother guide his feeble fingers 
to draw, however roughly, in sand or on a slate, the objects with which 
he is familiar. The former connects with all the reverent foreshadow- 
ing of his young heart, with the awe which silently stole over him 
when first he saw his mother kneeling, with uplifted gaze, beside his 
bed, with the devotion, which, responding to its outward sign, sprang 
up within him as she clasped his hands in prayer; with the intuitions 
stirred by the singing of sweet hymns, with the spiritual pi'esentiraents 
wakened by the symbolic light, with the solemn terror which crept over 
him in the darkness and the storm. The latter completes and satisfies 
the activity which led him to imitate the life around him, helps him to 
seize objects in their totality instead of in a single quality, and makes 
his representations organic by giving them permanence. This step 
once taken, the child enters a new phase of development. He has ad- 
vanced from the fact to the picture ! Here the " Mother-Play and Nur- 
sery Songs " leave him. Here the kindergarten takes him up ! 



SOME ASPECTS OF THE KINDERGARTEN. 

BY MISS SUSAN E. BLOW, ST. LOUIS. 



The Kindergarten is many-sided. Herein lies its greatest merit and 
its gi-eatest danger. To every different point of view it presents a dif- 
ferent face. To some it is a play-school, to others a workshop, to 
others an improved system of object lessons. Its sole aim is declared 
successively to be physical development, technical training, the for- 
mation of habits of cleanliness, order and courtesy, the strengthening 
of observation and the pleasant teaching of useful facts. All are right 
and all are wrong. The Kindergarten is all of these things, and yet 
no one of them, nor even a combination of them. Every part is nec- 
essary to the whole, and yet the whole is something more than the sum 
of its parts. 

" Who offers much," says Goethe, " brings something unto many." 
Every man is able to illustrate from his own experience some phase of 
a widely-reaching truth. The meanest man finds himself best inter- 
preted by the deepest thinker. The partial views of narrow teachers 
are reconciled in the inclusive thought of the philosophic educator. 
The perfect curve of the circle demands the infinite number of its sides. 

The Kindergarten is organic, therefore a variety in unity. It rec- 
ognizes that life is essentially activity, therefore aims mainly to de- 
velop power; it knows that objective truth is the mind's air and food, 
therefore values knowledge; it sees that the prizes of life. fall to the 
capable and industrious, therefore trains the child to woik ; it takes 
note of the increasing complexity of social relationships, therefore 
strives to initiate him into all the amenities of life ; it conceives the 
child in his threefold nature— as a physical, intellectual and moral 
being, — therefore emphasizes equally the training of the body, of the 
mind, and of the affections and will. Finally it grasps all these differ- 
ent phases of education in the unity of a single thought,and in the nature 
and laws of self-conciousness finds its method and its aim. It beholds 
the child through expression struggling towards self-knowledge, and it 
comes to his aid with material which appealing to his total nature calls 
forth his total activity. It helps him to complete expression that it 
may lead him to clear insight, and holds up before him all his relation- 
ships, that he may realize all his possibilities. Such at least was the 
Kindergarten in the idea of its founder. It exists as yet nowhere, and 
for a very simple reason. The ideal Kindergarten demands the ideal 
Kindergartner. 

The program of the theoretical Kindergarten includes garden work, 



596 SOME ASPECTS OF THE KINDERGARTEN. 

songs, games, stories, talks, lunch and exercises, in the Frobel gifts rnd 
occupations. 

The life of man began in a garden ; his first occupations were to " dress 
it and keep it " and to name the beasts of the field and the fowls of the 
air. So the little child should dig and plant his own garden, and feed 
and care for his dog, his cat or his bird. Practical doing awakens love 
and thought. Sympathy with nature is intensified by digging in the 
ground. Dependence is realized through waiting for the results of work. 
Curiosity is excited by the miracle of growth. The beauty of law is 
seen in the life of trees and flowers, and the unconscious lawfulness of 
nature inclines the heart to free obedience. God is revealed to the child 
as He first revealed himself to the human race — as creator, and the reve- 
lation of His being in nature prepares for His recognition in the soul. 

I translate from the Baroness Marenholz-Bulow, the most devoted of 
rrbbel's co-workers, an incident which illustrates these truths. 

"Two little girls, four and five years old, had in the Kindergarten a 
gai'den, where, like the other children, they had planted a few peas and 
beans. Every day they dug them up with their little hands to see 
why they didn't sprout. The beds of some of their companions 
showed already green shoots and tender leaves and this increased their 
disappointment and impatience. They were told they must stop dig- 
ging up their seeds and must wait patiently if they wanted to have 
plants. After this they kept their hands out of the dirt, and it was 
touching to watch their eager eyes turned every day on their garden, 
and to mark their growing patience and self-control. At last, one 
morning, we saw them on their knees gazing with wondering, delighted 
eyes on a number of small green shoots which had pushed up into the 
light. Often before had seeds sprouted before their eyes, but they had 
never noticed it. They were indifferent because they had not been 
active, — incurious because they themselves had not dug and planted 
and waited. It can never be too often repeated that only that impresses 
itself on the child which is in some way connected with his doing. 
Where the hands work the eyes see. 

Our wondering little children were in the presence of a miracle. 
Yesterday their garden was brown and bare, — to-day it was green with 
little shoots. " See," I said, " you have learned to wait and your seeds 
have come up, — but did your waiting make them grow ?" " No," came 
quickly from the children, " it was God that made them grow." " Yes," 
I said, " God sent the sunshine to warm the earth and the seed, then 
He sent dew and rain, and the hard peas and beans softened in the 
damp ground, then the germ sprouted as you have seen it do in peas 
which were taken out of the earth. God has made you very happy, 
wouldn't you like to do something to make Him happy ? What can you 
do ? " " We can work and be good," said the children, and the younger 
cried out joyfully and in accents of the deepest conviction, " I can do 
something to make God happy." 



SOME ASPECTS OF THE KINDEKGAllTEN. 597 

The Kindergarten songs are either taken from the " Mother Play and 
Nursery Songs," or inspired by its spirit. The one essential require- 
ment is that they shall present the same idea to thought, feeling and 
will. The music must correspond to the words, and both must be illus- 
trated by gestures. 

Gestures are to spoken what pictures are to written language. 
Words are formal signs, pictures and gestures universally recognizable 
representations. The word which stands for tree, for instance, differs 
in every different language ; the picture of a tree is always essentially 
the same. So the words which express love are as various as the 
phases of the feeling, but the savage and civilized man alike know the 
meaning of the hand pressure and the kiss. What a wide range of 
ideas may be expressed by gestures is shown in the pantomime of deaf 
mutes, while the natural tendency to employ gestures has been remarked 
by every student of primitive tribes and by every observer of young 
children. It is interesting in this connection to note that languages in 
the earlier stages of their development are characterized by numerous 
homonyms and synonyms, i. e., by the use of the same word to express 
many different meanings, and by the use of many different words to ex- 
press the same meaning. To a people whose speech is thus confused 
the gesture which points the meaning of a word is about as important 
as the word itself. The thought of the child also begins in the indefi- 
nite and obscure. The words he hears convey to him at first very vague 
and general impressions, and crystallize into clearness and precision 
only by repeated association with the acts, objects, qualities, relations 
and emotions to which they refer. To him, as to the primitive man, 
gesture is an important means of indicating this connection, and his 
conceptions are at once tested and strengthened by his representations. 
He was a wise man who said, "Let me make the songs of a nation 
and I care not who may make its laws." He is a wiser man who aims 
not only to write a nation's songs but to influence its games. The activ- 
ities of men are as important as their feelings, and the character of a 
people is both expressed in and intensified by national amusements. 
Would Greece have been Greece without the Olympian Games ? Can 
we conceive the typical Englishman without his cricket, his foot-ball 
and his boat races ? 

If we watch the games of children we shall notice that they fall, 
broadly speaking, into three classes. In the first class are included 
games of running, wrestling, throwing, and all other plays whose charm 
lies mainly in the exertion of physical strength and skill ; the second 
class of which the " King William," we all so well remember, is a type, 
reproduces the child's observations and experiences, — and the third 
which may be illustrated by " hide the handkerchief " and " turn the 
platter " is characterized by its appeal to the activities of the mind. In 
the Kindergarten these different types reappear transfigured. Frdbel 
has studied instinctive play — grasped its underlying idea, and perfected 



598 SOME ASPECTS OF THE KINDEltGARTEX. 

its form. He has arranged a variety of pure movement games, each 
one of which calls into play important muscles, — he has reproduced life 
in a series of dramatic games representing the flowing of streams, the 
sailing of boats, the flying of birds, the swimming of fishes, the activities 
of the farmer, the miller, the baker, the carpenter, the cobbler, — in short, 
all the activities of nature and of man ; he disciplines the senses through 
games appealing to sight, touch, hearing, smell and taste, and rouses 
pure mental activity through games which stimulate curiosity by sug- 
gesting puzzles. 

A comparison of Frbbel's plays with the traditional games of differ- 
ent nations would do much to show the purifying and elevating ten- 
dency of the Kindergarten. The limits I have set myself permit, 
however, only one or two suggestive illustrations. 

The Kindergarten games, like the songs, express the same thought 
in melody, in movement and in words. They differ from the songs 
in that their representations require the combined action of many differ- 
ent children. In the play of the birds' nest, for instance, a given num- 
ber of children represent trees, imitating, with arms and fingers, the' 
branches and leaves, while others, like birds, fly in and out, build nests, 
and finally drop their little heads in sleep. So in the ship game, the chil- 
dren standing around the circle, by a rhythmical undulating movement, 
represent waves, while a half-dozen little children, with intertwined 
arms, form the ship, and with a movement corresponding to that of the 
waves, imitate its sailing. Each child has something to do, and if a 
single child fails to perform his part, the harmony of the representation 
is destroyed. The games, therefore, tend strongly to develop in the 
children mutual dependence and sympathy, as in all life nothing draws 
us nearer to each other than united action for a common end. 

History teaches us that music, poetry and dancing were one in their 
origin, and observation shows us that they are one to the child. This 
suggests another important aspect of the Kindergarten games. We 
must see in them the crude beginnings of the three arts, and from this 
common center, lead the child slowly to perception of the harmonies of 
movement, the harmonies of sound, and the harmonies of thought. 

That their varied possibilities may be realized, the games require 
very judicious direction. 'The Kindergartner must wisely alternate 
dramatic games with those which appeal mainly to physical activ- 
ity; games which exercise the arms with games which exercise the 
legs ; games which emphasize the activity of a particular child with 
those which call for united effort. She must adapt the games to the 
ages of the children and to the season of the year. She must connect 
them with the child's life, and help him to see in them the reproduction 
of his experiences. She must not play one game too long, lest monot- 
ony result in inattention ; neither must she change the games too often, 
lest she tempt to frivolity. She must guide as a playmate, and not as a 
teacher. She must allow no mechanical imitation of set movement, 



SOME ASPECTS OF THE KINDERGARTEN. 599 

but aim to have movement spring spontaneously from the thought and 
feeling of the children. She must deeply feel the ruling idea of each 
game, and communicate it by contagion as well as by words. In short, 
possessed with a living spirit, she must infuse it into the children, and 
lead them to give it free and joyful expression. / 

The daily talk with the children is one of the most important and 
yet one of the most neglected features of the Kindergarten. It is neg- 
lected because it cannot be done by rule, it is important because through 
it the varied activity of the Kindergarten is concentrated in the unity 
of its idea. What should be talked about depends on what the children 
have been doing, and the whole idea of the conversation is lost when it 
is perverted into an object lesson. What the children have expressed 
in play, in their block-building, in their stick-laying, in their weaving 
and cutting and modeling, that also should tliey learn to express in 
words. What they see around thetn in the room, what they have no- 
ticed on their way to the Kindergarten, the pebbles they have picked 
up, the insects they have caught, the flowers they have brought with 
loving, smiling eyes to their motherly friend — in one word, in all the 
thronging impressions which besiege the mind from without, and in 
all the crude activity which shows the tumultuous forces within, the 
true Kindergartner finds suggestions for her talks with the little ones 
she is trying to lead into the light. 

The stories have one distinct object, which they realize in a twofold 
way. They aiiii to show the child himself, and to attain this end offer 
him both contrasts and reflections. The wise Kindergartner alternates 
the fairy tales which startle the child out of his own life and enable 
him to look on it from an alien standpoint, with symbolic stories of 
birds and flowers and insects, and with histories of little boys and girls 
in whose experiences she simply ^uirrors his own. Using the "Mother- 
Play and Nursery Songs," she leads the children toward the past, and, 
as they grow older, reproduces, in the legends of heroes and demigods, 
and in the touching narratives of the Bible, the infancy and childhood 
of the human race. Moving thus from the known to the unknown, 
and from the near to the remote, she holds himself up to him first in 
the glass of nature, then in the glass of childhood, and at last in the 
glass of history. Finally she shows him ideal childhood in the life of 
the ideal child, and tells him how the boy Jesus " grew in knowledge 
and wisdom and in favor with God and man." 

Never does the Kindergarten present a prettier picture than when 
the work is cleared away, the tables carefully set, and the children with 
shining faces and rosy hands are gathered at their lunch. Here are 
shown the beauty of cleanliness and the charm of order, — here the 
children learn to share generously, to accept graciously, and to yield 
courteously ; and the social training, which is one of the most important 
features of the Kindergarten, culminates in this half hour of free yet 
gentle and kindly intercourse. Good manners give not only social 



600 SOME ASPECTS OF THE KINDERGARTEN. 

charm but social power, and surely in this age of complex social de- 
mands man cannot be taught too early to move harmoniously among 
his fellows. 

In what I have to say of Frobel's gifts and occupations I wish to be 
distinctly understood as stating only their theoretic possibilities. Their 
adaptations to children of different ages and characters can only be 
learned by experience. Some of them may be profitably used by the 
baby in the nursery, — others are valuable in the primary school. Again, 
the same gift or occupation may be used in different ways to secure 
different ends. From the blocks the child builds with when he is five 
years old, he may learn at seven the elements of form and number. 
The square of paper, which the beginner creases into a salt-cellar or 
twists into a rooster, the older child uses to produce artistic forms and 
combinations. In general, there is advance from indefinite impressions 
to clear perceptions, from vague and half-conscious comparison to sharp 
distinction and clear analysis, from isolated experiences to connected 
■work and thought, and from a mere general activity to production and 
creation. 

With this general understanding pass we now to a detailed considera- 
tion of the gifts and occupations, and of their relationship to each other 
and to the child. 

The First Gift consists of six soft worsted balls of the colors of the 
rainbow. 

The Second Gift consists of a wooden sphere, cube and cylinder. 

The Third Gift is a two-inch cube divided equally once in each 
dimension, producing eight small cubes. 

The Fourth Gift is a two-inch cube divided by one vertical and two 
horizontal cuts into eight rectangular parallelopipeds. Each of these 
parallelopipeds is two inches long, one inch broad and half an inch thick. 

The Fifth Gift is a three-inch cube divided equally twice in each 
dimension into twenty-seven small cubes. Three of these are divided 
by one diagonal cut into two triangular parts, and three by two diagonal 
cuts into four triangular parts. 

The Sixth Gift is a cube of three inches divided into twenty-seven 
parallelopipeds of the same dimensions as those of the Fourth Gift. 
Three of these are divided lengthwise into square prisms, two inches 
long, half an inch wide and half an inch thick, and six are divided 
crosswise into square tablets an inch square and half an inch thick. 
Thus the gift contains thirty-six pieces. 

The Seventh Gift consists of square and triangular tablets. Of the 
latter there are four kinds, viz. : Equilateral, right and obtuse isosceles 
and right scalene triangles. 

The Eighth Gift is a connected slat, — the Ninth consists of discon- 
nected slats. 

The Tenth Gift consists of wooden sticks of various lengths, and 
the Eleventh Gift of whole and half wire rings of various diameter. 



SOME ASPECTS OF THE KINDERGARTEN. 601 

Looking at the gifts as a whole we see at once that their basis is 
mathematical, and we notice that they illustrate successively the solid, 
the plane and the line. We perceive, too, that they progress from 
undivided to divided wholes, and from these to separate and independ- 
ent elements. Finally, we observe that there is a suggestiveness in the 
earlier gifts which the later ones lack, while on the other hand the 
range of the latter far exceeds that of the former. The meaning of 
these distinctions and connections will grow clear to us as we study the 
common objects of the varied gifts. These objects are : 

I. To aid the mind to abstract the essential qualities of objects by 
the presentation of striking contrasts. 

II. To lead to the classification of external objects by the presenta- 
tion of typical forms. 

III. To illustrate fundamental truths through simple applications. 

IV. To stimulate creative activity. 

I. We can never recur too often to the history of the race for the 
interpretation of the individual. So I cannot consider it irrelevant to 
refer to a recent result of linguistic research which thi'ows into clearer 
light the trito, yet only vaguely understood, truth that knowledge 
rests upon comparison, and which strongly confirms the wisdom of 
Frobel in stimulating comparison by suggesting contrasts. I quote 
from an article by Dr. Carl Abel, one of the best known of the younger 
philologists of Germany.* After mentioning that the Egyptian lan- 
guage can be traced iji hieroglyphics up to about 3000 B. C, and in the 
Koptic to 1000 A. D, "furnishing the student, therefore, a favorable 
opportunity of exposing an uncommonly long period of linguistic devel- 
opment," he goes on to say : 

" In the Egyptian the words — at least in appearance — have two dis- 
tinctly opposite meanings, and the letters of such words also are some- 
times exactly reversed. Suppose the German word " gut " were Egyp- 
tian, then besides meaning good it might mean bad, and besides "gut" 
it might sound like tug. Tug again could mean good as well as bad, 
and by a small sound modification, as it often happened in the life of a 
language — perhaps to inch — furnish occasion to a new conversion into 
chut which again from its side could unite the two meanings." 

This statement is followed by illustrations of the facts adduced, and 
by reference to the Koptic researches of the author which contain a 
list of such metatheses ninety pages long. It is then shown that in the 
Egyptian writing the opposite meanings of the same word were distin- 
guished by adding to the sound value written by letter of each word a 
determining picture. The word ken, for instance, could mean either 
strong or weak, and whenever this word appears in writing it is accom- 
panied by a picture illustrating its meaning in the particular case. 
Commenting on these very remarkable facts Dr. Abel says : 

" Our judgments are formed solely upon comparison and antitheses. 
♦Translation in the N'ew Englander for November. 



602 SOME ASPECTS OF THE KINDERGAKTEN. 

As little as we need to think of weakness when we have once grasped 
the conception of strength, so surely could not strength have been 
originally conceived of without measuring itself by contrast with weak- 
ness. Let any one attempt to grasp a single new idea beyond the range 
of thought which has become familiar to him by known word defini- 
tions without his being put to the trouble of seeking them out, and he 
will be convinced on this point as to the nature of intellectual progress. 
Each one to-day becomes acquainted with strength without an effort of 
his own judgment, because the idea exists in the language, because he 
i3 accustomed to it from childhood as a meaning for certain actions, 
objects and persons. But when, leaving the range of every-day experi- 
ence and words applying to it, we attempt to create individual ideas or 
to think over again rare and seldom heard thoughts of others, we find 
ourselves face to face with the necessity of conscious antithesis. To 
bide by word-thoughts, no scholar has grasped the idea of acute, obtuse 
and right angle without bringing the three in real contrast ; no student 
has grasped the esse of Hegel without having confronted it with the 
non esse ; in general, no one has learned tolerably a foreign tongue 
without explaining those word-meanings which vary from those of his 
native tongue by a comparison with them. The Egyptian leads us back 
to the infant period of humanity, in which these first commonest con- 
ceptions had to be grasped in this slow and thoughtful manner. In 
order to learn to think of strength one must separate one's self from 
weakness ; in order to comprehend darkness you must separate liglit; in 
order to grasp much you must hold little in the mind for contrast. 
Such Egyptian words as antithetically show both branches of the 
original comparison, furnish an insight into the wearisome work-shop 
in which the first and most necessary ideas — to-day the glibbest and 
most easily handled — were forged." 

It is quite true, as Prof. Abel says, that we now acquire many ideas 
along with the means of their expression, and the style of our thinking 
is largely determined by our inherited speech. To a great extent this 
coercion of our thought is necessary. If we are to advance upon our 
forefathers, we must learn in months and years what they learned in 
generations and centuries. Born in an age of steam engines we must 
in some way rapidly reproduce the experiences which began when some 
forgotten savage kindled the first fire. We are mediated results our- 
selves, and therefore have to learn through the mediation of others. 
Nature cannot tell us what she told to the first men ; that secret she 
has trusted to them and we must leaim it from them before we can 
understand what she has to say to us. The heir of all the ages must 
enter upon his inheritance before he can penetrate their increasing 
purpose. 

While all this is true, it is equally true that ideas acquired without 
the conscious exercise of judgment and comparison lack vitality. Tra- 
ditional habits of thought must end in formalism. The reaction of Ian- 



SOME ASPECTS OF THE KINDERGARTEN. 603 

guage upon mind will always be powerful. Through it the whole past 
presses upon the present, and the thought of all who have preceded us 
contributes to the shaping of our thought. That its constraiut may 
not be destructive of our fieedom, we must come into personal con- 
tact with the simplest ideas and the commonest experiences. 

The great j^roblem of education is to effect the necessary mediation 
without destroying originality, and this can only be done by organizing 
experiences which shall conduct to a preconceived end. This truth is 
now widely realized, and everywhere we find increasing demand for 
experiments in natural science and illustrations in all branches of study. 
But only Frobel has seen that this same method should Ije applied to 
the youngest children and to the most familiar facts, and by a series of 
objects in which essential qualities are strongly contrasted, aims to 
excite the mind to conscious antithesis. 

It may be urged that if this process of comparison is natural to the 
mind, the mind may safely be trusted to follow it out. "We might as 
well argue that because the law of gravitation has been discovered, 
each generation should, unaided, discover it anew. The contrasts of 
nature are so blended into harmony that their opposition is lost, yet 
this very opposition must be felt before their harmony can be realized. 
Frobel simply accelerates the natural tendency of thought by carefully 
abstracting from material things their essential qualities, and then so 
arranging his gifts that each one shall throw some distinctive attribute 
into relief. Thus in the first gift he presents contrasts of color ; in the 
second, contrasts of form ; in the third, contrasts of size ; in the fourth, 
contrasts of dimension ; in the fifth he offers both contrasts of angles 
and contrasts of number; while in the sixth he repeats, emjihasizes and 
mediates the contrasts of the preceding gifts. Passing to the plane in 
the seventh gift he offers subtler contrasts of form, while the connected 
and disconnected slats render these still more striking by showing how 
they are produced. The sticks and rings which, properly speaking, are 
one gift, contrast the straight and curved line, and offer striking per- 
ceptions of position and direction. And finally the solids, planes and 
lines are mutually illustrative, and the child learns both clearly to dis- 
tinguish the different parts of his solids and to connect his planes and 
lines with them, identifying at last his stick, the embodiment of the 
straight line, with the axis of the sphere, the edge of the cube and the 
side of the square, and the ring which embodies the curve with the cir- 
cumference of the sphere and the edge of the cylinder. 

These contrasts of color, size, form, number, dimension, relation, 
direction and position illustrated in the gifts are applied in the occupa- 
tions, and supplemented in the games and songs by contrasts of smell, 
taste, movement and sound. There is no salient attribute of material 
things which is not thus thrown into light, and as a consequence sharply 
defined and firmly grasped by the mind. 

We realize the significance of this result more fully when we reflect 



604 SOME ASPECTS OF THE KINDEKGARTEN. 

that by the perception of analogies between tlie material and spiritual 
world, the words designating the acts, objects, qualities and relations of 
the one have been adapted to express the acts, powers, states and rela- 
tions of the othei". There is no single word of our intellectual or moral 
vocabulary which was not originally applied to something apprehensi- 
ble by t4ie senses, and many of the most important of them refer to 
physical facts and qualities with which the child gets acquainted in his 
earliest years. When, for instance, we speak of great men, great 
actions, greatness, the analogy is obviously to size ; when we call a man 
straightforward, allude to crooked dealings or describe a character as 
angular, we borrow from the language of lines and their relations ; when 
we talk of lives rounded into completeness and actions that are fair and 
square, we are debtors to analogies with form ; when we speak of high 
station, deep truths, broad views, we refer, however, unconsciously to the 
" threefold measure which dwells in space ; " and when we mourn over 
dark sorrows and black crimes, we steal our words from the vocabulary 
of color. It was part of Frobel's idea to make the child sensible of 
these relationships by connecting his first perception of the moral force 
of words directly with the physical fact to which they stand in analogy. 
To give only a single illustration, in the game of the joiner the child 
alternates long and short movements while imitating the act of planing. 
The long and short of movement is then connected with the long and 
short of sound, the long and short of form, and the long and short of 
time ; and finally, through the story of Goliath and David, in telling 
which the contrast between the tall giant and the stripling who defied 
and conquered him is emphasized, the distinction between physical and 
moral greatness is foreshadowed to the mind. The mark of the true 
Kindergarten is the all-pei'vading connection between the things of 
sense and the things of thought. 

II. It is an admitted law that the mind moves from the known to the 
unknown. Nothing charms us more than the recognition of the old 
in the new. The man who hurries through a foreign city indifferent 
and inattentive to the passing crowd feels a quick thrill of pleasure 
when in the midst of all this strangeness he recognizes a familiar face. 
Let our minds become keenly conscious of a single thought and the 
whole world glows with illustrations of it. It was insight into this 
truth which led Frobel to make the " archetypes of nature the play- 
things of the child." "Line in nature is not found," says Emerson, 
but " unit and universe are round." The ball illustrates the ideal form 
towards which the universe strives. This then is Frobel's starting 
point and he follows it up with the other forms which underlie the 
works of nature and of art. The cube gives us the basis of classifica- 
tion for mineral forms and is the fundamental type of architecture. 
The cylinder, which nature shows us in the trunks of trees and the 
stems of plants and in the bodies and limbs of animals, is also the basis 
of the ceramic art. In short, in geometric forms we have a key to all 



SOME ASPECTS OF THE KINDEKGAETEN. 605 

the beauty and variety of material things, whether works of God or 
works of man, made in the image of God. 

The eifect of these normal types in developing observation, classifica- 
tion and creative activity is quite remarkable. The shelves of the well 
conducted Kindergarten groan under the spools and buttons, the marbles 
and apples, nests and eggs, bottles and blocks which the eager children 
bring in morning after morning saying they have found something 
more like their ball, cube or cylinder. I remember well a little girl five 
years old wlio after playing for sometime with her ball began to count 
over the different round objects she could remember, and after naming 
apples, grapes, cherries and peaches, suddenly exclaimed with a flash of 
quick pleasure in her face, " Why all fruits are round," and, she added 
after a moment's thoughtful pause, " so are all vegetables." A little boy 
of the same age came one morning with a particularly eager face to the 
Kindergarten and begged "for a lump of clay to make his mamma's 
preserve dish." " How are you going to make it? " I asked as I handed 
him the clay. The answer was prompt and decided. " First I'll make 
a ball and flatten it to get a circle, on top of that I'll stand a long nar- 
row cylinder, and above that I'll put a hollowed out half-ball." In the 
field flowers and the leaves of the trees, in dew drops and jewels, in 
the patterns of carpets and oil cloths, in the figures on wallpaper, in 
architectural decorations, in the varied reflections of the sunlight and 
the shifting figures of the clouds, the wide-open eyes of the Kindergar- 
ten child rejoice in the revelation of familiar forms, and the heart made 
for unity detects it with a thrill of gladness under the infinite manifold- 
ness of the external world. 

III. There is a growing belief among educators that the mind should 
be kept in constant relation with all the essential branches of knowledge, 
but that the method of study should vary with the progressive stages of 
mental development. Thus they would present the sensible facts of 
any given science to the perceptions of the child, the relations of these 
facts to the understanding of the youth, and the synthesis of these 
relations to the reason of the mature student. By this method there 
is secured continuity of thought, and the ultimate inclusive principle 
is made to register the results of a vivid personal experience. 

While the evolution of moral truths has been less distinctly formu- 
lated, it is I think widely felt that they must be rooted in the sympathies 
and fostered by exertion of the will. As we present knowledge suc- 
cessively to perception, reflection and pure thought, so we may present 
the same moral relationships successively to feeling, conscience, and 
spiritual insight and match our intellectual spiral of facts, relations and 
principles with a spiral of moral presentments, intuitions and compre- 
hensions. 

The Kindergarten deals with the first stage of this double develop- 
ment and offers to the mind perceptions, and to the heart presentiments. 
Moreover it deals not with special branches of study, but with primal 



606 SOME ASPECTS OF THE KINDERGARTEN. 

facts, not with special moral obligations, but with fundamental moral 
relationships. And finally it appeals not separately to the mind and 
heart, but through the same objects and exercises touches both at once. 
In all this the Kindergarten is in accord with the nature of the child. 
No person can be thrown with children without noticing their religious 
aptitudes and sympathies, their strongly developed sense of analogy, 
and their aversion to analysis. The youth is analytic and investigative, 
ambitious to work out his own purposes, prone to question and to deny. 
But the little child is happy in the felt though uncomprehended unity 
of life, and the sage finds rest at last in a unity which he comprehends. 
Thus the end of life meets its beginning. At sunrise and at sunset we 
rejoice in the sun, though in the glare of the noonday we forget the 
glory of the light in the beauty of the things enlightened. 

It seems to me, therefore, quite reasonable when Frbbel claims that 
the deepest and most universal truths should determine what we do for 
children and how we do it, and that precisely these deepest truths are the 
ones that the child will most readily recognize, though of course only under 
limited forms and applications. The deepest of all truths to Frdbel is 
that self-recognition is effected through self-activity, and the jiraetical 
outcome of this insight is that education should from the beginning 
occupy the child with plastic material which he uses in subservience to 
organic law. As he uses this material he is constantly illustrating the 
truths that all development begins in separation, — tliat through sepaia- 
tion there is attained a higher union, — that every part is necessary to 
the whole and the whole is necessary to every part, — that deepening 
povs*er is restricting power, and that, advancing from the homogeneous 
to the heterogeneous, a higher harmony results from a constantly in- 
creasing variety. These were the thoughts which ruled in Frobel'a 
mind, and he organized his gifts to give them material expression. 
First the undivided solids vstamp themselves as wholes upon the child's 
mind. With the divided cube the child begins to transform and create, 
while by the repeated reconstruction of the original form, the relation 
of the parts to the whole is kept prominently in view. As the divis- 
ions of the cube increase in variety and complexity he finds he can pro- 
duce more and more perfect forms, and when, through the constant 
association of the individual parts with the units from which they were 
derived, the idea of organic connection has become the regulator of his 
instinctive activity he advances to a gift which offers him not an object 
to transform, but independent elements which he combines in varied 
wholes. 

Frobel would be the weakest of educators if he claimed that children 
could understand these truths. But it is a very different thing to claim 
that they may, nay, that they must obey them and that activities regu- 
lated by tliese insights prepare the way for comprehension. The child 
who in perceptible things has been led to see the ordering of parts to a 
whole must as his mind develops grasp logical relations in the world 



SOME ASrECTo OF THE KINDEKGARTEN. 607 

of thought, and will, in a certain sense, be constrained to infer from 
visible eflfects their invisible causes. For there can be no connection 
without an underlying law, and it is impossible that there can be two 
systems of logic, one applying to the material and the other to the 
spiritual world. There is vast distance between the child's perception 
that he cannot rebuild his cube without using all the cubes into which 
it is divided and the man's recognition that he is an essential element 
of the great whole of humanity, — between the child's experience that 
the most beautiful forms he produces are those in which he most com- 
pletely emphasizes individual elements and the man's glad certainty 
that his organic connections demand the rich fullness of his personal- 
ity, — yet if there is continuity in life distance cannot abolish relation, 
and the full stream of the man's thought may be surely traced to the 
little springs of the child's perceptions. 

Evidently these results will not come of themselves by simply play- 
ing with the Kindergarten gifts. Frobel's material must be quickened 
with Frobel's spirit, and she who aspires to guide a living mind must 
herself be regenerated by the truth. Only as she sees the end can she 
make the right beginning, and without violating the child's freedom 
wisely direct his steps. The mustard seed grows into a great tree, the 
leaven hid in the meal leavens the lump. Let a single vital truth, in 
however crude a form, be stirred to life in the mind, and straightway it 
both re-creates the mind in its own likeness and becomes prolific of re- 
lated truths. 

IV. All the features of the Kindergarten thus far alluded to are 
simply results of a single ruling thought, — flowers and fruit of one 
hidden root. When we comprehend this prolific thought we compre- 
hend Frobel. Until then we can only see in the Kindergarten a system 
of more or less valuable detail. Briefly stated this root thought is that 
as God knows himself through creation so must man, or in other words 
that to truly live we must constantly create, and that the condition of a 
complete self-consciousness is a complete reflection. The life of the soul 
is a struggle towards self-knowledge, and self-knowledge comes only 
through self-externalization. As Frobel puts it, " The inward as in- 
ward can never be known, it is only revealed by being made outward. 
The mind like the eye sees not itself but by reflection." What we 
want is to know ourselves, and we learn to know ourselves not by tak- 
ing in but by giving out. God " for His own glory " makes man in His 
own image, or differently stated, completes His self-consciousness in 
the consciousness of the creature, and man too can only realize himself 
by producing his image. 

Frobel's merit lies not in the recognition of this truth, but in its 
application. Many thinkers have stated it more clearly than he, and 
other educators have traced it in the ceaseless bubbling over of the 
child's speech and in the ardor of his play. But Frobel alone, with in- 
sight into the end the child blindly seeks, has aimed to aid the instinct- 



608 SOME ASPECTS OF THE KINDERGARTEN. 

ive struggle towards self-consciousness, and by wisely organized material 
to stimulate and direct creative activity. 

However we may criticise the basis of Frobel's thought, no fair ob- 
server will question the results of his method. Let a child try to 
fashion his lump of clay into a bird's nest, and though his effort yield 
no other result it will certainly lead him to examine carefully the next 
bird's nest he sees. Let him make an apple and a pear and he must 
feel tlieir difference in form as he would never have done had he simply 
looked at the two fruits. Let him attempt to lay with his sticks the 
outline of a house and his attention cannot fail to be caught by facts 
of direction and proportion. Let him apply numbers in weaving and 
their relations grow interesting to him. Lead him to construct sym- 
metrical figures and he must feel the laws of symmetry. Teach him 
rhythmic movements and he must recognize rhythm. All things are 
revealed in the doing, and productive activity both enlightens and 
develops the mind. 

It has always been a difficult problem to strike the balance between 
knowledge and power. The mind is not a sponge, nor is education the 
absorption of facts. On the other hand nothing is more dangerous 
than energy uncontrolled by knowledge and insight. The mind like 
the stomach suffers from overloading, yet both need constant food. 
The test of healthy assimilation is increasing strength, and we know 
we are supplying the mind with the right kind and amount of food if 
we notice a gain in vigor and originality. The child's intense play is 
nature's effort to order the thronging impressions of the first years of 
life, and the Kindergarten simply follows nature in alternating receptive 
and creative activities, and in constantly registering the results of per- 
ception in reproduction. 

In an age so analytical and scientific as our own the Kindergarten 
has a special value. Scientific methods need to be supplemented in 
education by artistic processes. The scientist beginning with the em- 
bodied fact seeks its relations and its causes, — the thought of the artist 
is the final cause of the statue, the painting or the poem. The scien- 
tist, " handicapped by fact and riveted to matter," struggles painfully 
towards the spiritual, while before the artist the invisible is constantly 
shaping the visible and the eternal declaring itself in the transitory. 
The restless scientist strives to order a bewildering variety, the artist 
instinctively realizes the unity from which variety is evolved and feels 
the soul of the whole animating each particular part. We prepare the 
children for spiritual insight when we lead them to create. 

Again, the representative system is death to superficiality and self- 
conceit. The child's imperfect results teach him humility and stir him 
to fresh effort. He is constantly testing his perceptions by production, 
and measuring himself by his attainment. He learns that what he 
can use is his, — that only what he consciously holds he truly possesses. 
He finds out in what directions he can best work and transforms un- 



SOME ASPECTS OF THE KINDERGARTEN. 609 

comprehended tendency into definite character. He advances on the 
one hand from perception to conception, from conception to reproduc- 
tion, from reproduction to definition, and on the other from an instinc- 
tive to a self-directing activity, and from this to self-knowledge and 
self-control. Thus by the same process he unlocks creation and realizes 
in himself the image of his Creator. 

The order of the Kindergarten gifts follows the order of mental 
evolution, and at each stage of the child's growth Frobel presents him 
with his " objective counterpart." " The child," he -says, " develops 
like all things, according to laws as simple as they are imperative. Of 
these the simplest and most imperative is that force existing must exert 
itself, — exerting itself it grows strong — strengthening it unfolds — un- 
folding it represents and creates — representing and creating it lifts 
itself to consciousness and culminates in insight." This perception of 
the course of development determines his idea of the stages of early 
education. It should aim, first, to strengthen the senses and muscles 
conceived as the tools of the spirit, — second, to prepare for work by 
technical training, and to aid self-expression by supplying objects which 
through their indefiniteness may be made widely representative, — third, 
to provide material adaptied to the conscious production of definite 
things and diminish the suggestiveness of this material in direct ratio 
to tlie increase of creative power, and fourth, by analysis of the objects 
produced, and the method of their production lift the child to conscious 
communion with his own thought. The first stage of this educational 
process is realized through the " Songs for Mother and Child," — the 
second through the Kindei-garten games, the simpler occupations and 
the first two Gifts, — the third through the exercises with blocks, tablets,, 
slats, sticks and rings, and the work in drawing, folding, cutting, peas 
work and modeling, and the fourth through the wise appeal of the 
Kindergartner to the thought of the child as she leads him slowly from 
the what to the how, and from the how to the why and wherefore of 
his own action. 

The definitely productive exercises begin with the Thii-d Gift. Fro- 
bel contends that the proverbial destructiveness of children is a pervei'- 
sion of the faculties of investigatidu and construction, and that the 
broken toys strewn over our nursery fioors express the mind's impatient 
protest against finished and complicHted things. Unable to rest in ex- 
ternals the child breaks his toys to find out " what is inside," and scorn- 
ful of what makes no appeal to his activity he turns from the most 
elegant playthings to the crude results of his own manufacture. What 
he wants is not something made for him, but material to make some- 
thing himself. What he needs is an object which he can take to pieces 
without destroying, and through which he can gratify his instinct to 
transform and to reconstruct. At the same time the possibilities of the 
object must not be too varied and it must be suggestive through its 
limitations. The young mind may be as easily crushed by excess as it 

39 



610 SOME ASPECTS OF THE KINDERGARTEN. 

is paralyzed by defect. Hence, Frobel's choice of a cube divided into 
eight smaller cubes. It is easily separated into its elements and easily 
reconstructed. It is capable of a reasonable number of transforma- 
tions, and its crude resemblances satisfy the child's crude thought. It 
offers no variety of form to confuse his mind, but rigidly confines him 
to vertical and horizontal, to the right angle and the square. Moreover, 
he can scarcely arrange his blocks in any way without their taking 
forms which will suggest some object he has seen. If he piles them 
one above the other a word from mother or Kiudergartner enables 
him to see in the unsought result of his doing a tower, a light-house or 
a lamp post. If he arranges them side by side he is confronted with a 
wall, if in two parallel rows, behold the railroad ! The change of a 
single block transforms the railroad into a train of cars, and with an- 
other movement the cars vanish in a house. Having as it were reached 
these results accidentally the child next directly aims to reproduce them, 
and thus through the suggestiveness of his material is helped from an 
instinctive to a self-directing activity, and from simple energy to 
definite production. This point once attained he triumphs over more 
and more complicated material, and constrains an ever increasing 
variety of elements to obey his thought. With planes and sticks he 
advances to surface representation, and prepares the way for drawing, 
and finally begins of himself to form letters and to spell out the names 
of familiar things. His progress, like that of the race, moves thus from 
the conciete to the abstract, Irom the fact to the picture, and from the 
picture to the sign. 

In the exercises with the Gifts, great care is necessary on the part of 
the Kiudergartner. She must see that each gift is conceived first as a 
whole, complete in itself, and must derive its parts by analysis. She 
must keep up the idea of relation by requiring the use of all the ele- 
ments of the original whole in each object produced. She must show 
that unused material is wasted material, must encourage neatness 
and accuracy through care to build on the squares of the table, and 
must strengthen continuity of thought and imply the connection of 
things, by leading from the building of isolated objects to the develop- 
ment of sequences, in which each form grows out of the form that pre- 
cedes and hints the form which follows it. She must help the child to 
say in words what he has said in material forms, lead him to name and 
describe what he has made, and connect each object produced with his 
life and sympathies. She must, from time to time, concentrate the ac- 
tivity of different children on a common end, and again, she must, 
through stories and songs, organize their independent creations into a 
connected whole. She must not impair originality by too constant 
direction, neither must she suffer freedom to run into license. As 
the artist is not enslaved, but helped by the laws of artistic creation, 
so the young mind is not limited, but developed by wise guidance. 
The felt need of the child must, however, determine the help given, as 



SOME ASPECTS OF THE KINDEKGARTEN. 611 

all through life our realized lacks open our hearts to sympathy and 
sugfi^estiou. 

Through analysis of their productions the children are slowly awak- 
ened to facts of form and relations of number, and led to the clear and 
precise use of language. As they grow older the analysis becomes more 
definite and extended, and whereas the baby beginners only 7iume the 
objects they produce, the more advanced children tell how they make 
each object, and the graduating class must be able to resolve whatever 
they create into its elements, and state the facts of form, number, di- 
rection and relation which it illustrates. I consider this final stage very 
important, for the reason that it makes clear to the mind the meaning 
of all its experiences, and leads from the particular fact to the princi- 
ple governing all the facts of the given class. 

With children who have completed the pure Kindergarten course, the 
gifts may be profitably used to teach the rudiments of geometry and 
arithmetic. The geometric forms are first recognized, then sought 
under their veiled manifestations in nature, then applied in construc- 
tion, then consciously produced, clearly analyzed and sharply defined, 
and finally shown in their relations to each other. Thus the child who 
begins by simply calling his building blocks "cubes," will end by rec- 
ognizing in his cube, the solid, the polyhedron, the hexahedron, the prism 
and the parallelepiped, and will comprehend its precise definition as a 
rectangular parallelepiped whose faces are equal squares. So, begin- 
ning by pointing out the square corners of his cube, he ends with the 
definite conception of a right angle as produced when " two straight 
lines meet each other so as to make the adjacent angles equal." All 
the simple problems of geometry may be illustrated to perception and 
grasped as matters of fact, and the mind thus be prepared for the geo- 
metrical reasoning of later years. 

It is unnecessary to enlarge upon the evident adaptation of the gifts 
to the teaching of arithmetic. Infinitely varied exercises in counting, 
and in the four fundamental rules, may be given with the sticks, while 
the divided solids ofier striking illustrations of fractional parts — halves, 
quarter.: and eighths must grow clear through the right use of the third 
and fourth gifts, while the fifth and sixth lead on, in their natural divi- 
sion, to thirds, ninths and twenty-sevenths, and may also be used to 
illustrate halves, quarters, sixths and twelfths. The salient features of 
th3 method are, first, to excite interest in the relations of numbers 
rather than to give mechanical drill ; second, to constantly associate 
number and form, making them mutually illustrative ; third, to apply 
numbers to mechanical and artistic production. Whereas in the Kin- 
dergarten proper the child abstracted from his productions numerical 
facts, he now directly seeks in his constructions to solve numerical 
problems. To illustrate : with a given number of blocks the children 
are required to build a hotise of stated height, breadth and thickness, 
with a fixed number of windows and doors of definite dimensions, and 



612 SOME ASPECTS OF THE KIKDERGAKTEN. 

having built it, to calculate its square and cubic contents ; with their 
tablets they make squares, oblongs, rhombs, etc., of different sizes, 
noting length, breadth and contents, or with their sticks develop sym- 
metrical figures from different mathematical centers, calculating them- 
selves the number of sticks required for each new addition. Gradually 
they grow capable of abstract exercises, and far from finding vexation 
in multiplication and madness in fractions, their lessons in arithmetic 
are to them a delight and an inspiration. 

From this imperfect survey of the Gifts let us turn now to the Occu- 
pations. These are Perforating, Sewing, Drawing, Intertwining, AVeav- 
ing. Folding, Cutting, Peas-work, Card-board and Clay Modeling. 

The perforating tool is a sharp needle fastened into a wooden handle. 
Holding this in a perfectly vertical position tlie child pricks small round 
holes in paper. Little children are provided with drawings in bold 
lines, and by perforating these lines produce on the opposite side of the 
paper a raised outline of the drawn figure. As they grow more expert 
they produce pictures in relief by delicately perforating the surface 
between the lines. They also receive paper marked off in squares, and 
first pricking the corners of these squares and then by careful perfora- 
tions connecting these corners obtain vertical and horizontal lines of 
different lengths. These are next united to foim figures and as the eye 
gains accuracy and the hand precision, advance is made to slanting and 
curved lines and their combinations. 

Squared paper perforated only at the corners and outline pictures 
perforated at distances of about the eighth of an inch give the basis of 
the sewing exercises. Armed with worsted and an embroidery needle 
the child connects the corners of the paper and makes various combina- 
tions of lines, or carefully re-traces the outlines of pictures. The 
salient feature in the new occupation is variety of color — and through 
this simple work the harmonies and contrasts of color may be indicated 
and the attention directed to the colors of natural objects. 

Sewing and pricking culminate in drawing, which again emphasizes 
both combinations of lines and representation of objects, hinting on 
the one hand the elements of design and on the other the first princi- 
ples of artistic reproduction. Beginning by copying the outlines they 
have laid with sticks, the children advance to reproduction of the figures 
resulting from combinations of tablets, and from these first to front 
views, and finally to simple perspective representations of the solids 
and their transformations. As the first step in drawing is to learn to 
see correctly, it is evident that all the exercises both in gifts and occupa- 
tions prepare for the use of pencil and chalk. As the mediation of 
word and object drawing is of vast importance in its reaction on the 
mind and as the soul of all technical processes, it is the indispensable 
basis of industrial education. 

The material for intertwining consists of strips of paper of different 
colors, lengths and widths, which folded lengthwise and plaited accord- 



SOME ASPECTS OP THE KINDERGAKTEN. 613 

ing to definite rules represent a great variety of geometric and artistic 
forms. The plaiting by rule must however lead up to free combinations. 

In the occupation of mat plaiting the child weaves strips of paper 
into a leaf of paper cut into strips, but with a margin left at each end 
to keep the stiips in place. Designs are not imitated from patterns, 
but produced by numerical combinations. In this mediation of number 
and form lies the special significance of the weaving exercises, which 
however are also valuable for cultivating the sense of color. 

The folding material consists of square, rectangular and triangular 
pieces of paper with which a variety of figures are produced by slight 
modifications of a few definite ground forms. Through this occupation 
ideas of sequence and connection are emphasized, and the relation of 
mathematics to artistic production indicated. 

In the occupation of cutting, a square or triangle of paper is folded 
and cut by rule, and the pieces into Avhich it is thus separated are com- 
bined in symmetric forms and mounted on a sheet of paper oi card- 
board. The child is also enco.uraged to originate cuts. 

By fastening sticks sharpened at the ends into peas soaked in water, 
our little worker next produces the skeletons of real objects and of 
geometric forms. This occupation leads to close analysis of form, con- 
nects different solids with their corresponding planes and prepares for 
perspective drawing. 

While peas work throws into relief the outlines of objects, card-board 
modeling represents their surface boundaries, and clay work brings us 
back to the solid itself. By modifications of the sphere, cube and cyl- 
inder, a variety of objects are represented, and these typical forms are 
more definitely recognized in the works of nature and of man. 

Taken as a whole the occupations apply the principles suggested by 
the gifts and give permanence to their vanishing transformations. It 
will be observed that particular occupations connect with particular 
gifts. Thus pricking, sewing and drawing, which are essentially one, 
connect with the sticks and rings, intertwining and mat plaiting con- 
nect with the slats, folding and cutting with the tablets and peas woi-k, 
card-board and clay modeling with the undivided and divided solids 
of the first six gifts. It is also noticeable that while the gifts move 
from the solid to the surface, the line and the point, the occupations, 
reversing this movement, develop from point to line, surface and solid, 
and that while the determined material of the gifts limits to the com- 
bination and arrangement of unchangeable elements, the plastic 
material of the occupations is increasingly subservient to the modifying 
thought and touch of the embryo artist. 

As has been repeatedly said the aim of the Kindergarten is to 
strengthen and develop productive activity. But we must be conscious 
of ideas hpfore we can express them, and we must gain the mastery of 
material before we can use it as a means of expression. Hence the first 
use of the gifts is to waken by their suggestiveness the mind's sleeping 
thoughts, and the first use of the occupations to train the eye and the 



614 SOME ASPECTS OF THE KINDEKGAUTEN. 

mind to be the ready servants of the will. While the child is still 
imitative in the occupations lie becomes inventive in the gifts, but as 
he grows to be more and more a law unto himself he turns from the 
coercion of his Jolocks, tablets and sticks to obedient paper and clay, 
and ultimately outgrowing the simpler occupations, concentrates his 
interest in the exercises of drawing, coloring and modeling. These 
artistic processes, with a technical training according to the very suc- 
cessful Russian plan, might it seems to me be profitably introduced 
into our regular school course. 

The effect of Kindergarten training in the increase of health, in the 
development of grace, and in the formations of habits of cleanliness, 
courtesy, neatness, order and industry, are now so readily acknowledged 
that it is unnecessary here to do more than allude to them. Its 
power to develop ideas of number and form, to give mastery of mate- 
rial through technical training, to impresss fundamental perceptions 
sharply on the mind, to lead to nice discrimination and choice use of 
words, and to hint the truths which are the forms in which all creation 
is cast, has probably been sufficiently illustrated in the preceding pages. 
But there are other results obvious to any open-eyed mother or teacher 
to which the attention of those who cannot study the Kindergarten for 
themselves should be directed. 

First among these I should emphasize happiness. I do not venture 
to say that the complacent misery and self-satisfied despair which are 
the fashion of the day have their roots in the peevish discontent and 
selfish exactions of a childhood untrained to work and unaccustomed to 
give, but I never look at the bright faces or watch the busy fingers of 
children in a Kindergarten, that I do not feel sure they will grow up 
into men and women who will look upon idleness as a vice, and persist- 
ent unhappiness as a crime; whose awakened minds will with increasing 
enthusiasm increase in knowledge and power ; whose trained wills will 
know the joy of ceaseless striving, and whose hearts will enter with a 
shout and a bound into each fresh privilege of love. The Kindergarten 
emphasizes mental activity in opposition to mental dissipation, and a 
healthy objectivity as opposed to a sickly pre-occupation with self, and 
my observation of children who have had its training enables me to say 
that they like better to work and play themselves than to be amused by 
others ; that they prefer study, to diverting reading ; that their imagina- 
tion seeks healthful embodiments; that their moral tendencies are 
rather practical than sentimental, and that in consequence they are 
merry as the crickets and full of glad song as the birds. 

Another noticeable result is the developed spirit of helpfulness. If 
the supreme revelation of Christianity is the fatherhood of God, and its 
supreme duty practical recognition of universal brotherhood, then I 
know no spot on earth nearer to the kingdom of heaven than the true 
Kindergarten. The director, essentially the sympathetic helper of the 
children, teaches them by her example to help each other, and the 
motherliness of the older girls, the eager desire of all the children to 



SOME ASPECTS OF THE KINDEKGARTEN. 615 

show each other their work, the glad approval breaking out into audible 
praise, and the blame of wrong which blends with pity and helpfulness 
for the wrong doer, these are daily expressions of the moral life of the 
Kindergarten which tell us what human life might be were the truths 
we profess so glibly the real movers of our souls. That great philoso- 
pher to whom so many of our strongest religious thinkers owe so much 
of their best thought, has said that " Christianity carries in its bosom a 
power of renovation which is still unsuspected," and that when acting 
no longer only on individuaU it becomes " the internal and organizing 
force of society, it will reveal itself to the world in all the depth of its 
conceptions and in all the richness of its blessings." Could Fichte have 
peeped into the Kindergarten he would have seen there the beginning 
of the end, and rejoiced in the sway of that spirit which shall yet solve 
the problem of the many and the one. 

Another flower which blossoms freely in the Kindergarten is loving 
faith in " grown-up people." The groat necessity of hinnan hearts is 
comprehension. The sharer of our lives and thoughts is the one M-ho 
influences both. Understanding of the instrument gives the power to 
play upon it at will. Understanding guided by love and consecrated to 
help makes the power of the Kindergartner, and explains why the 
happy children turn to her as flowers turn to the sun. Finding their 
dumb needs met, their blind energies directed, their unasked questions 
answered, and their groping fingers clasped in a firm yet tender hand 
and guided to a rewarding work, they grow in faith as they grow in 
wisdom and match increasing power with increasing love. And just as 
the lisping baby calls all men " papa " and in every ceiling finds the 
sky, so the child brimming over with love for one wise friend believes 
in the friendliness of all older persons and turns to them with instinct- 
ive sympathy. This is no fancy sketch of an unrealized possibility. It 
is a fact which I have noticed many times in many different Kinder- 
gartens, and the experience of which is the rich reward of each one who 
faithfully tends the living plants in her living garden. 

I shall, perhaps, express the crowning re^<ult of the Kindergarten 
most clearly if I say that in proportion as children respond to its train- 
ing, they learn to live their lives consciously. They know the powers 
in whose exercise they rejoice, and blessings brighten to them without 
taking flight. They feel the unity of life and see their own morning 
hours growing towards the noon-day, and to them, as to the poets of 
old, all things are aglow with a revelation of God. In these richest 
fruits of Frobel's method I cannot be mistaken, for I had noticed them 
long before I understood their significance, and it was, indeed, through 
them that I was led finally into the secret of his thought. 

The struggle of life is a struggle towards complete self-consciousness. 
Power existing, exerted, comprehended,- — separation tending ever to a 
closer union, spirit through incarnation rising to self-recognition, the 
whole creation groaning and travailing together in pain, until, in the 
fullness of time, the self-conscious creature reflects the eternally self- 



616 SOME ASPECTS OF THE KINDERGARTEN. 

conscious Creator, — this is tlie history alike of the uuiverse and of the 
individual soul. Light may flash from the jewel and sparkle in the dew- 
drop, paint the morning sky with roses, and transfigure the clouds of 
evening into a golden glory, but not until the living eye comes forth to 
see, is the secret of the sun revealed. So, too, the angi-y waves may 
dash themselves against the shore, the thunder roll in the sky, and the 
wild wind bow the grain and uproot the trees, yet the silence of Nature 
never breaks into sound until confronted with the living ear. Dark- 
ness gives way to light and chaos to order, nebulous masses compact 
themselves into worlds, worlds crown themselves with trees and flowers, 
and earth and water bring forth abundantly the living creature that 
hath life, yet, 

" Tlie fleeting pageant tells for nought 

Till orbed iu mind's creative tliouglit." 

It was Frbbel'saim to aid this struggle of the soul in that first pei'iod 
of life, when thought is potential, character faintly outlined in ten- 
dency, and will expressed only in an indefinite energy. In the light 
of this aim we understand his method. Recognizing companionship 
as a condition of growth, that mind reflects mind as " eye to eye op- 
posed salutes each other with each other's form, "Fiobel, contradict- 
ing Rousseau and advancing upon Pestalozzi, demands that the child 
shall see himself in children. Recognizing '• obedience as the organ of 
spiritual knowledge," and the trained will as the condition of the en- 
lightened mind, he foreshadows moral facts through their correspond- 
ing virtues, and through the performance of small duties, prepares for 
. the comprehension of great truths. Recognizing that there can be 
no knowledge of external things without seizing the distinctions be- 
tween them, and no self-recognition without estrangement from self, he 
presents on the one hand that ort^anized sequence of contrasts through 
which the child learns to know tl.f^ ^^ oikl without, and on the other that 
organized system of work through which he reflects the world within. 

Describing the influences which had most strongly affected the evolu- 
tion of his own thought, Frobel said that the field had been his 
school-room and the tree his tutor ; the nursery his university, and lit- 
tle children his professors. From the tree he learned the continuity of 
life and traced the successive differentiations which mark the process of 
organic growth ; studying children he beheld the continuity of life melt 
into the varied unity of creative thought, and learned to see in the 
course of development through progressive differentiations the embodi- 
ment of thought's eternal distinction of the self from the self. Hence 
his final word is that there is nothing true but thought, and his funda- 
mental educational maxim to teach children to think by training them 
to do. In development through an activity which is both receptive and 
productive lies the secret of his method and the explanation of the 
child's otherwise inexplicable growth in " self -reverence, self-knowledge, 
self-control ; " the three, that " alone lead life to sovereign power." 



NECESSITY OF KINDERGARTEN CULTURE. 

IN OUR SYSTEMS OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION.* 
BY MISS ELIZABETH P. PEABODY. 



QUALITY OP EDUCATION TO BE CONSIDEKED. 

The history of many great nations shows that there may be an educa- 
tion, which paralyzes and perverts instead of developing and perfecting 
individual and national life. It is not from want of a most careful and 
powerful system of education that China is what she is. And India, 
Egypt, Greece, and Rome had their systems of education, ethcient for the 
production of material and intellectual glories certainly, but which, 
nevertheless, involved the principle of the decay and ruin of those 
nations. Even the education of Christian Europe, that, with all its 
acknowledged defects of method and scope, has made all the glory of 
modern civilization, has failed to bring out the general results that are to 
be hoped for, if we are to believe in the higher prophetic instincts of the 
sages and saints of past ages, to say nothing of the promises of Christ, 
who expressly includes the life that now is with that which is to come. 
At our own present historical crisis, when it is the purpose to diffuse 
throughout the United States the best educational institutions, it is our 
duty to pause and ask whether all has been gained in educational method 
and quality which it is desirable to spread over the South; whether it 
may not be possible to improve as well as diffuse, and in the reconstructed 
States to avoid certain mistakes into which experience has proved that 
the North-eastern States have fallen. It is certain that mere sharpening 
of the wits, and opening to the mind the boundlessness of human oppor- 
tunity for producing material wealth, are not the only desiderata. As 
education builds the intellect high with knowledge, it should sink deep 
in the heart the moral foundations of character, or our apparent growth 
will involve future national ruin. In defining education as only the 
acquisition of knowledge, which is but an incident of it, we have indeed 
but followed the example set by the Old World, and have hoped that by 
offering this knowledge to all, instead of sequestrating it to certain classes, 
we have done all that is possible. But it is not so. The quality of our 
education should rise above, or at least not sink below, that of the nations 
that have educated their few to dominate over the many, else our self- 
government will be disgraced; and, therefore, I would present the claims 
of the new system of primary education, which has been growing up in 
Germany during the present century, and which, in the congress of Euro- 

♦ First published ia the Annual Report of the Commissioner of Education for 1810. 



618 KINDERGARTEN CULTURE. 

pean philosophers that met at Frankfort-on-the-Main, in 1869, was pro- 
nounced, after searching examination, the greatest advance of method. 

In the report of Dr. Hoyt (United States commissioner to the Paris 
Exposition of 1867) on the present state of education in Europe, there is a 
short, clear, and very striking statement of the normal education given to 
the primary teacliers of all the Germanic nations, Prussia taking the lead. 
He saj^s they " all recognize that the primary department of education is 
at once the most important and difficult, and requires in its teachers, first, 
the highest order of mind; secondly, the most general cultivation; and 
thirdly, the most careful cherishing, greatest honor, and the best pay, for 
it has the charge of children at the season of life when they are most 
entirely at the mercy of their educators." As this report is distributed 
by the Senate to whoever will send for it, I will not repeat Dr. Hoyt's 
minute description of the normal training required of the primary 
teachers, or his statistics of the satisfactory results of their teaching, but 
pass at once to a consideration of the still profounder method of Froebel, 
which immediately respects the earliest education, but of which Dr. Hott 
.does not speak, inasmuch as it is not yet anywhere a national system, 
though within the last twenty years it has spread over Germany and into 
Scandinavia and Switzerland, and been introduced into Spain, France, 
Italy, and Russia; but to no country is it adapted so entirely as to 
America, where there is no hindrance of aristocratic institution, nor 
mountain of ancient custom, to interfere with a method which regards 
every human being as a subject of education, intellectual and moral as 
well as physical, from the moment of birth; and, as the heir of universal 
nature in co-sovereignty with all other men, endowed by their Creator 
with equal rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 

It is all the more important to make an exact statement of Feoebel's 
art and science of education in its severity, because it has been and is 
extensivelj^ travestied in this country, by numerous schools called Kinder- 
gartens which have disgraced its principle, as they have only a superfi- 
cial resemblance to those institutions to which Froebel gave that name. 

THE froebel idea. 

The fundamental or rather root point in which Froebel's method 
differs from that of all other educators, is this : he takes up the human 
being in the full tide of that prodigious but blind activity in which he 
comes into the world, and seeks to make it intelligent of itself and of 
things around it, by employing it to produce palpable effects, at once sat- 
isfactory to the heart and fancy of childhood, and true to nature, by 
knowledge of whose order and organization the human understanding is 
built up in soundness and truth. For the blind heart and will, which the 
human being is, until by becoming intelligent of nature he is transmuted 
into a principle of order, is the very principle of evil. Without imagining 
any inherent malignity of heart, yve must admit, that the child necessarily 
goes on knocking down and tearing up, and creating disorder generally, 
to its own and other people's annoyance, in its vain endeavor to satisfy 
the instinct to alter that is the characteristic of human will, until it is 
educated to recognize and obey the laws of God expressed in nature. 



II 



KINDERGARTEN CULTURE. 619 

For a time tlie young senses are not adequate to accurate perception of 
outward objects; and far less is the power of abstracting the hiws of 
order developed in a young child. A certain evil is theieioie originated 
which seems so inevitable, that it has tasked the human intellect to 
reconcile it with Divine benevolence, and driven men into various the- 
ories, more 'or less uusati&iuctory to all, upon the nature of evil and its 
place in the economy of creation. Now Froebel undertakes to give a 
practical solution of this terrible problem, by his art; for he seizes this 
very activity in the earliest infancy, and gently guides it into the produc- 
tion of effects that gratify the intense desires of the soul, and cause it 
actually to produce the beauty and use at which it has blinilly aimed. 
He looks upon the child as a doer primarily, and a knower sub.se(iueutly; 
that is, an an artist before he is a scientist. Entering with genial sym- 
pathy into that primal activity which we call childish play, he guides the 
child first to embody and then carefully observe eternal laws, even on this 
humble plane, by which he surprises and delights himself with the beauty 
or use that grow under his hands, and therefore absorb his attention. 
For what meets a child's internal sense of titness and beauty, especially if 
it is his own work, he is delighted to examine; and he loves to analyze 
the process by which the delightful result has been obtained. While it is 
a hard thing to make a child copy the work of another, he will repeat his 
own process over and over again, seeming to wish to convince himself that 
like antecedents involve like consequences. These repetitions sharpen his 
senses as well as develop his understanding; they also give skillfulness to 
his hands, and make him practically realize individuality, form, size, 
number, direction, position, also connection and organization, which last 
call forth his reflective and inventive powers. 

Hence Kindergarten teaching is just the careful superintendence and 
direction of the blind activity of little children into self-intelligence 
and productive work, by making it artistic and morally elevated. For it 
carefully regards the ennobling of the soul by developing the love of good 
and beauty which keeps the temper sweet and the heart disinterested; 
occupying the productive powers in making things — not to hoard— not 
to show how much they can do, which might foster selfishness, vanity, 
and jealousy — but for the specific pleasure of chosen friends and com- 
panions. Thus, without taking the child out of his childish spontaneity 
and innocence, Fkoebel would make him a kind, intelligent, artistic, 
moral being, harmonizing the play of will, heart, and mind from the very 
beginning of life, into a veritable image of the creativeness of God. 

The mother gave Froebel the model for this education, in the instinct- 
ive nursery play by which she helps her little one to consciousness of his 
body in its organs of sense and motion. She teaches him that he has 
hands and feet, and their uses, by inspiring and guiding him to use them; 
playing with him at " pat-a-cake," and "this little pig goes to market and 
this stays at home," ifec. I wish I had room to give a review of Froebel's 
book of mother songs, nursery plays, pictures, and mother's prattle, which 
is the root of the whole tree : but lean merely refer to it in passing.* 

*This worlj, Froebel's Mother Play and Nursery Songs, with the music, engraved illus- 
trations, and notes, is published in Boston by Lee & Shepard. 



620 KINDERGARTEN CULTURE. 

lie shows in it that what he learnt from the mother he could return to 
her tenfold, bettering the instruction; and that the body being the first 
word of which the child takes possession by knowledge, though not 
without aid, we must play with the child. If we do not, he ceases to 
play. Charles Lamb has given a most affecting picture of the effects 
of this in his pathetic paper on the neglected children of the poor; and 
the statistics of public cribs and foundling hospitals prove, that when 
children are deprived of the instinctive maternal nursery play, almost all 
of them die, and the survivors become feeble-minded or absolute idiots, 
Dr. Howe says much idiocy is not organic but functional only, and to be 
referred to coarse or harsh dealing with infants, paralyzing their nerves 
of perception with pain and terror; even a mere inadequate nursing may 
have this effect ; and he and other teachers of idiots have inversely proved 
this to be true, by the restoring effects of their genial methods. And 
what produces idiocy in these extreme cases produces chronic dullness, 
discouragement, and destruction of all elasticity of mind, in the majority 
of children. It is appalling to think what immense injury is done, and 
what waste made of human faculty, by those defective methods of educa- 
tion which undertake to reverse the order of nature, and make children 
passive to receive impressions, instead of keeping them active, and letting 
them learn by their own or a suggested experimenting. Some people, 
having seen that the former was wrong, let their children "run wild," as 
they call it, for several years; but this is nearly an equal error. Not to be 
attaining habits of order is even for the body unhealthy, and leaves chil- 
dren to become disorderly and perverse. The very ignorance and help- 
lessness of children imperatively challenge human intervention and help. 
They would die out of their mere animal existence in the first hour of 
their mortal life, did not the mother or nurse come to their rescue. Most 
insects and other low forms of animal life know no care of parents. 
They are endowed with certain absolute knowledge, enabling them to fill 
their small sphere of relation unerringly as the needle points to the pole. 
We call it instinct. But as the scale of being rises, relations multiply, 
which, though dependencies at first, become, by the fulfillment of the 
duties they involve, sources of happiness and beneficent power ever' 
widening in scope. Man, who is to fill the unlimited sphere of an immor- 
tal existence, knows nothing at all of the outward universe at his birth. 
The wi.sdom that is to guide his will, is in the already developed and 
cultivated human beings that surround him; and he depends on that 
intercommunion with his kind which begins in the first smile of recogni- 
tion that passes between mother and child, and is to continue until it 
becomes the "communion of the just made perfect," which is highest 
heaven both here and hereafter. 

The instinct, therefore, that makes a mother play with her baby, is a 
revelation of a first principle, giving the key-note of human education; 
and upon it Froebel has modulated his whole system, which he calls 
Kindergarten ; not that he meant education to be given out of doors, as 
some have imagined; but because he would suggest that children are 
living organisms like plants, which must blossom and flower before they 
can mature fruit ; and consequently require a care analogous to that which 



KINDERGARTEN CULTURE. 621 

the gardener gives to his phints, removing obstacles and heightening the 
favoring circumstances of development. 

The seed of every plant has in miniature the form of its individual 
organization, enveloped in a case which is burst by the life-force within 
it, so that the germ may come into communication with those elements, 
whose assimilation enables it to unfold, in one case a tree, in other cases 
other vegetable forms. In like manner the infant soul is a life force 
wrapped up in a material case, which is not, however, immediately 
deciduous ; for, unlike the envelope of the seed, the human body is also 
an apparatus of communication with the nature around it, and especially 
with other souls, similarly limited and endowed, who shall meet its out- 
burst of life, and help it to accomplish its destiny— or Under! I beg 
attention to this point. We either educate or hinder. The help to be 
given by education, is an essential part of the Eternal providence, and we 
must accept our duty of embodying the divine love in our human provi- 
dence, which we denominate education, on the penalty of injurinrj, which 
is the supreme evil. "Woe unto him who shall offend one of these little 
ones. It were better for him that a millstone were hung about his neck, 
and he were cast into the uttermost depths of the sea." 

As the child gets knowledge and takes possession of his own body, by 
the exercise of his several organs of sense and the movement of his limbs, 
so he must gradually take possession of the universe, which is his larger 
body on the same principle; \>j learning to use its vast magazine of mate- 
rials to embody his fancies, attain his desires, and by and by accomplish 
his duties, education being the mother to help him to examine these mate- 
rials and dispose them in order, keeping him steady in his aims, and 
giving him timely suggestions, a clew to the laws of organization, by fol- 
lowing which all his action will become artistic. For art is to man what 
the created universe is to God. I here use the w^ord art in the most 
general sense, as manifestation of the human spirit on every plane of 
expression, material, intellectual, and moral. 

Froebel, therefore, instead of beginning the educating process by 
paralyzing play (keeping the child stiU, as the phrase is,) and superin- 
ducing the adult mind upon the childish one, accepts him as he is. But 
he organizes the play in the order of nature's evolutions, making the first 
playthings, after the child's own hands and feet, the ground forms of 
nature. He has invented a series of playthings, beginning with solids — 
the ball, the cube, and other forms — going on to planes, which embody 
the surfaces of solids, (square and the various triangles,) and thence to 
sticks of different lengths, embodying the lines which make the edges of 
the solids and planes; and, finally, to points, embodied in peas or balls of 
wax, into which can be inserted sharpened sticks, by means of which 
frames of things and symmetrical forms of beauty may be made, thus 
bringing the child to the very borders of abstraction without going over 
into it, which little children should never do, for abstract objects of 
thought strain the brain, as sensuous objects do not, however minutely 
they are considered. In building and laying forms of symmetrical beauty 
with these blocks, planes, sticks, and peas, not only is the intellect 
developed in order, but skilful manipulation, delicate neatness, and orderly 
process become habits, as well as realized facts. The tables that the 



622 KINDERGARTEN CULTURE. 

children sit at as they work are painted in inch squares, and the blocks, 
planes, and sticks are not to be laid about in confused heaps, but taken 
one by one from the boxes and carefully adjusted to these inch squares. 
In going from one form to another the changes are made gradually and in 
order. No patterns are allowed. The teachers may at first, perhaps, 
suggest how to lay the blocks, planes, sticks, also wire circles and arcs, in 
relation to each other severally, and to the squares of the table. For sym- 
metrical forms they suggest to lay opposites till the pupils have learned 
the fundamental law— union of opposites for all prodnciion and beaniy. 
A constant questioning, calling attention to every point of resemblance 
and contrast in all the objects within the range of sensuous observation, 
and also to their obvious connections, keeps the mind awake and in 
agreeable activity. Margin for spontaneous invention is always left, 
which the law of opposites conducts to beauty inevitably. In acting 
from suggested thoughts, instead of from imitation, they act from within 
outward, and soon will begin to originate thoughts, for Kindergarten has 
shown that invention is a universal talent. ' 

But the time comes when children are no longer satisfied with making 
transient forms whose materials can be gathered back into boxes. They 
desire to do something which will remain fixed. Froebel's method 
meets this instinct with materials for making permanent forms bj^ draw- 
ing, sewing, weaving, interlacing, cutting, modeling, etc. 

The stick-laying is the best possible preparation for drawing, for it 
trains the eye, leaving the children to learn the manipulation of the pencil 
only, and this is again made easy by having the slates and paper ruled in 
eighths or tenths of an inch, that the pencil of the child may be guided 
while the hand is yet unsteady, for Froebel would never have the child 
fail of doing perfectly whatever he undertakes, and this is effected by 
making him begin with something easy, and proceeding by a minute 
gradualism. He would also train the eye to symmetry by never allowing 
him to make a crooked line, just as the ear is trained in musical educa- 
tion by never making a false note. Though the net which guides the 
hand to straightness, when it is yet feeble, is a mechanical help, it does 
not prescribe the forms drawn, which are suggested to or invented by the 
fancy, not imitated from a copy. 

Beside the drawing, which is carried to quite a wonderful degree of beauty, 
invented even by children under seven years old, pricking of symmetrical 
forms may be done by means of the same squared paper; and again, 
pricked cardboard may be sewed with colored threads, teaching harmo- 
nies of color. Also another variety of work is made by weaving into 
slilted paper of one color strips of other colors, involving not only the 
harmonizing of colors, but the counting and arrangement for symmetrical 
effect, which gives a great deal of mental arithmetic, while the folding of 
paper with great exactness in geometrical forms, and unfolding it to make 
little boats, chairs, tables, and what the children call flowers, gives con- 
crete geometry and the habit of calculation. 

A lady who traveled in Europe to study Froebel's Kindergartens, 
brought home from Dresden the whole series of work done by a class of 
children who began at three years old and continued till seven; and no 



KINDERGARTEN CULTURE. 623 

one has seen it without being convinced that it must have educated the 
children that did it, not only to an exquisite artistic manipulation, -which 
it is very much harder to attain later, but to habits of attention that would 
make it a thing of a short time to learn to read, write, and cipher, and 
enable them to enter into scientific education, and to use books with the 
greatest advantage when eight years old. 

Calisthenics, ball-plays, and plays symbolizing the motions of birds, 
beasts, pretty human fancies, mechanical and other labors, and exercising 
the whole body, are alternated with the quieter occupations, and give 
grace, agility, animal spirits, and health, with quickness of eye and 
touch, together with an effect on the mind, their significance taking the 
rudeness out, and putting intelligence into the plays without destroying 
the fun. The songs and music which direct these exercises are learned 
by rote, and help to gratify that demand for rhythm which is one of the 
mysteries of human nature, quickening causal power to its greatest energy, 
as has been proved, even in the education of idiots, by the almost miracu- 
lous effects upon them of the musical gymnastics, which are found 
to wake to some self-consciousness and enjoyment, even the saddest of 
these poor victims of malorganization. All Froebel's exercises are 
characterized by i-hythm; for the law of combining opposites for synmiet- 
rical beauty makes a rhythm to the eye, which perhaps has more pene- 
trative effect on the intellectual life than music. 

If true education, as Froebel claims, is this conscious process of devel- 
opment, bodily and mental, corresponding point by point with the uncon- 
scious evolutions of matter, making the human life the image of the 
divine creativeness, every generation owes to the next every opportunity for 
it. In this country, whose prodigious energies are running so wild into 
gambling trade and politics, threatening us with evils yet unheard of in 
history, it may be our national salvation to employ them in legitimate, 
attractive work for production of a beauty and benefit that also has been 
yet unheard of in historj^; and this can best be done by preventing that 
early intellectual perversion and demoralization, with Avaste of genius and 
moral power, entailed on us by the inadequate arbitrary modes of prmar^ 
discipline which deteriorate all suhseq^ient education. 

But the indispensable preliminary of this new primary discipline are 
competent teachers, who can be had only by special training. "What is at 
once delightful play and earnest work to the children, requires, in those 
who are superintending it, not only a knowledge of the laws and processes 
of vital growth, which are analogous if not identical in nature and art, but 
the science of infant psychology also. These things are not intrinsically 
difficult of attainment, and it is easier, if the teacher has been trained to 
it, to keep a Kindergarten, according to the strict principle of Froebel, 
than to keep an ordinary primary school in the ordinary manner, because 
nature helps the former with all her instincts and powers, while the latter 
is a. perpetual antagonism and struggle with nature for the repression of 
a more or less successful chronic rebellion. 

The best Kindergarten normal school in the world is that founded by 
the Baroness jiARENHOLTZ-BuiiOW, in Dresden, where she lectures gratuit- 
ously herself on the philosophy of the method, and its relations to ' ' the 



524 KINDERGARTEN CULTURE. 

regeneration of mankind " (to use her own phrase), and the pupils have 
instruction from professors ii\ many branches of science and art, while 
they go to observe and practice several times a week in properly taught 
Kindergartens. But Americans, who have had our usual normal or hio-h 
school education, or its equivalent, if they are fairly gifted and educated, 
genial, sweet-tempered, and candid, can obtain the special training in a 
six months' diligent course, and the more surely the more they have the 
grace of a wise humility. What it took Fkoebel, with all his heart and 
genius, a half century of study and experimenting to elaborate, it would 
seem at first could not be learned in bo short a time. But it must be 
remembered that the more profound and complete the truth, the more 
easily can it be comprehended when once fairly stated. It took a Newton 
to discover the pri/icipia natune, and a Copernicus to replace the compli- 
cated Ptolemean by nature's solar system; but any child of twelve years 
old can comprehend and learn them, now they are discovered. Froe- 
bel's authority inheres in his being a self-denying interpreter of nature, 
the only absolute authority (nature being God's word). As Edgar Qui- 
NET said in 1865, in a letter to the Baroness Marenholtz-Bulow, remark- 
ing that Froebel " sees the tree in the germ; the infinitely great in the 
infinitely small; the sage and great man in the cooing babe;" and "his 
method, therefore, is that of nature herself, which always has reference to 
the whole, and keeps the end in view in all the phases of development," 
comparing him to "the three wise men from the East who placed the 
treasures of nature in the hands of the heavenly Child " — and the state- 
ment is worthy of all attention — "It is certain that the results of this 
r^iethod can only be attained if it is applied according to the principles of the 
discoverei'. Without this, the best conceptions of Froebel must be falsi- 
fied, and turned against his aim; mechanism alone would remain, and 
would bring back teacher and pupil into the old traces of routine." 

But the immediate desideratum is a free national school to supply Kin- 
dergarten education to the schools of the District of Columbia, the Terri- 
tories, and the South, to be located in the District, or perhaps in Rich- 
mond, Virginia, where some of the "ten thousand Southern ladies," who 
signed the pathetic petition to Mr. Peabody to found for them an indus- 
trial school, might learn this beautiful art, and be made able to initiate in 
their beloved South a higher, more refined, and also complete system of 
education than has ever obtained in any country. It has been ascertained 
that an eminent Kindergartener in Europe, now in full employ, but will- 
ing to leave all to do this thing in the United States, may be secured for 
five years, finding all the apparatus and materials herself. Will not some 
one of our munificent public benefactors trustee in the hands of some per- 
son wise in the matter, a sum of money yielding three or four thousand 
dollars a year to secure this absolutely necessary normal training? In 
this country every radical reform of education requires the action of pri- 
vate intelligence for its inception. $2,000 a year would suffice. 

N. B. — This year (1879) a training school for Southern ladies has been 
established, (through the liberality of Mrs. Elizabeth Thompson to the 
Froebel Union), in the Normal school of Baltimore, Md., which, it is to 
be hoped, friends of the South will endow in the future years. 



KINDERGARTEN IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM. 

BY WILLIAM T. HARRIS, LL.D.,* 
Superintendent of Public Instruction in St. Louis. 



PRELIMINARY AND ASSOCIATED QUESTIONS. 

The question of the kindergarten cannot be settled without considering 
many subordinate questions. 

In one sense the whole of life is an education, for man is a being that 
constantly develops — for good or evil. In every epoch of his life an 
education goes on. There are well-defined epochs of growth or of educa- 
tion: that of infancy, in which education is chielly that of use and wont, 
the formation of habits as regards the care of the person, and the conduct 
within family life ; that of youth, wherein the child learns in the school 
how to handle those instrumentalities which enable him to participate in 
the intellectual or theoretical acquisitions of the human race, and wherein, 
at the same time, he learns those habits of industry, regularity, and punctu- 
ality, and self-control ''''h enable him to combine with his fellow-men 
in civil society and in the state ; then there is that education which fol- 
lows the period of school education — the education which one gets by the 
apprenticeship to a vocation or calling in life. Other spheres of education 
are the state, or body-politic, and its relation to the individual, wherein 
the latter acts as a citizen, making laws through his elected representatives^ 
and assisting in their execution; the church, wherein he learns to see 
all things under the form of eternity, and to derive thence the ultimate 
standards of his theory and practice in life. 

The question of the kindergarten also involves, besides tliis one of 
province — i. e. , the question whether there is a place for it — the considera- 
tion of its disciplines, or what it accomplishes in the way of theoretical 
insight or of practical will-power; these two, and the development of the 
emotional nature of the human being. Exactly what does the kinder- 
garten attempt to do in these directions? And then, after the what it does 
is ascertained, arises the question whether it is desirable to attempt such 
instruction in the school; whether it does not take the place of more 
desirable training, which the school has all along been furnishing; or 
whether it does not, on the other hand, trench on the province of the 
education within the family— a period of nurture wherein the pupil gets 
most of his internal, or subjective, emotional life develoi>ed? If the 
kindergarten takes the child too soon from the family, and abridges the 
period of nurture, it must perforce injtn-e his character on the whole; for 
the period of nurture is like the root-life of the plant, essential for the 
development of the above-ground life of the plant, essential for the public 
life of the man, the life wherein he combines with his fellow-men. 



* Prepared for Meeting of American Froebel Union^ ©eccmber^ 1879» 
40 



g26 KJNDERGAKTEN IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM. 

Then, again, there is involved the question of education for vocation in 
life — the lareparation for the arts and trades that arc to follow school-life — 
as the third epoch in life-education. Should the education into tlie techni- 
calities of vocations be carried down into the school-life of the pupil; still 
more, should it be carried down into the earliest period of transition from 
the nurture-pei'iod to the school -period? 

Besides these essential questions, there are many others of a subsidiary 
nature, — those relating to expense, to the training of teachers and their 
supply, to the ability of public-school boards to manage such institutions, 
to the proper buildings for their use, the proper length of sessions, the 
degree of strictness of discipline to be preserved, etc., etc. The former 
essential questions relate to the desirability of kindergarten education ; the 
latter relate to the practicability of securing it. 

IDEAL OP THE KINDERGARTEN. 

The most enthusiastic advocates of the kindergarten offer, as grounds 
for its establishment, such claims for its efficiency as might reasonably be 
claimed only for the totality of human education, in its five-fold aspect — 
of nurture, school, vocation, state, and church. If what they claim for 
it were met with as actual results, we certainly should realize the fairest 
ideals of a perfected type of humanity at once. Such claims, however, 
can be made only of a life-long education in its five-fold aspect, and not 
of any possible education which lasts only from one to four years in the 
life of the individual. Notwithstanding this exaggeration, it may prove 
to be the case that the kindergarten is justified in claiming a province 
heretofore unoccupied by the school or by family nurture, and a province 
which is of the utmost importance to the right development of those 
phases of life which follow it. It is, indeed, no reproach to the friends of 
the "new education" (as they call it) to accuse them of exaggeration. 
The only fault which we may charge them with is a tendency to ignore, 
or underrate, the educational possibilities of the other provinces of human 
life, and especially those of the school as it has hitherto existed. 

To illustrate the breadth of view which the advocates of the kindergarten 
entertain in regard to the theory and practical value of the kindergarten, 
I quote here a statement of its rationale, furnished me by Miss Elizabeth 
Peabody, justly considered the leading advocate for the new education 
in this CD\intry: — 

" The rationale of FroebeTs method of education is only to be given by 
a statement of the eternal laws which organize human nature on the one 
side and the material universe on the other. 

" Human nature and the material universe are related contrasts, which 
it is the personal life of every human being to vmji/. Material nature is 
the unconscious manifestation of God, and includes the human body, with 
which man finds himself in relation so vital that he takes part in perfecting 
it by means of the organs ; and this part of nature is the only part of 
■nature which crn l)c said to be dominated vitally by man, who, in the 
Instance of Jesus Clirist, so purified It by never violating any law of human 
nature— which (human natiu-e) is Cod's intentional revelation of Himself 
to each — that He seems to have had complete dominion, and could make 



KINDERGARTEN IN THE PUBLIC bCiIOOL bVSTEM. 627 

Himself visible or invisible at will ; transfiguring His natural body by His 
spiritual body, as on the Mount of Transfiguration; or consuming it 
utterly, as on the Mount of Ascension. Whether man, in this atmosphere, 
will ever do this, and thus abolish natural death, or not, there is no dovibt 
there will be infinite approximation to this glorification of humanity in 
proportion as education does justice to the children, as Froebcl's educa- 
tion aims to do it; for it is his principle to lead children to educate them- 
selves from the beginning — like Socrates's demon — forbidding the wrong 
and leaving the self activity free to goodness and truth, which it is des- 
tined to pursue for ever and ever." 

A writer in the Canadian School Journal gives utterance to the follow, 
ing estimate of the value of kindergartens : — 

" Graduated from a true kindergarten, a child rejoices in an individual 
self-poise and power which makes his own skill and judgment important 
factors of his future progress. He is not like every other child who iuis 
been in his class; he is himself. His own genius, whatever it may be, 
has had roon> for growth and encouragement to express itself. Ho 
therefore sees some object in his study, some purpose in his effort. 
Everything in his course has been illuminated by the same informing 
thought ; and, therefore, with the attraction that must spring up in the 
young mind from the use of material objects in his work, instead of a 
weariness, his way has been marked, at every step by a buoyant happiness 
and an eager interest. Any system that produces such results is educa- 
tionally a good system. But when you add that all this has been done so 
natu;-ally and so judiciously that the child has derived as much physical 
as mental advantage, and an equally wholesome moral development, who 
can deny that it is superior to any other yet devised or used, and that, as 
such, it is the inalienable birthright of every child to be given the advan- 
tages of its training? . . . Before the time of Froebel, the science 
of pedagogics was founded upon abstruse thought, although sometimes 
introducing — as in the various object-systems — the concrete form as a 
means of education; but Froebel, by a Divine inspiration, laid aside his 
books, wherein theory mystified theory, and studied the child. He said, 
God will indicate to us in the native instincts of His creature the best 
method for its development and governance. He watched the child at its 
play, and at its work. He saw that it was open to impressions from every 
direction; that its energies were manifested by unceasing curiosity and 
unceasing restlessness; that, if left to itself, the impossibility of reaching 
any satisfactory conclusions in its researches, little by little stifled its 
interest; the eager desire to explore deeply the world of ideas and objects 
before him passed into a superficial observation, heeding little and sure 
of nothing. He saw that the lavi^ which made it fiit from object to object 
in this unceasing motion was a law of development implanted by God, 
and, therefore, good; but that, unless it were directed and given aim and 
purpose, it became an element of mischief as well. Then what could be 
done? How was the possible angel to be developed, and the possible 
devil to be defeated? Froebel said: 'If we take God's own way, we 
must be right; so let us direct into a systematic, but natural course of 
employment all these tender fancies, these fearless little hands and feet, 



C28 KINDERGARTEN IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM. 

and these precious little eager souls; and then we shall work with the 
Divine love and intelligence, and it with us, and our children shall find 
the good and avoid the evil.' Then year was added to year of thought 
and study and practice, until he gave his system to the world in its present 
completed form." 

The disciples of Froebel everywhere see the world in this way. With 
them the theory of the kindergarten is the theory of the world of man 
and nature. Froebel himself was as much a religious (or moral) enthu- 
siast as a pedagogical reformer. The moral regeneration of the race is 
the inspiring ideal which his followers aim to realize. 

I do not disparage this lofty ideal ; it is the ideal which every teacher 
should cherish. No other one is a worthy one for the teacher of youth ! 
But I think that any gifted teacher in our district schools, our high schools, 
or our colleges, may, as reasonably as the teacher of the kindergarten, 
have this lofty expectation of the moral regeneration of the race to follow 
from his teachings. If the child is more susceptible at the early age when 
he enters the kindergarten, and it is far easier then to mould his personal 
habits, his physical strength and skill, and his demeanor towards his 
equals and his superiors, yet, on the other hand, the high-school teacher 
or the college professor comes into relation with him when he has begun 
to demand for himself an explanation of the problem of life, and it is 
possible, for the first time, at this age to lead him to insight — the immedi- 
ate philosophical view of the universality and necessity of principles. 
Insight is the faculty of highest principles, and, of course, more import- 
ant than all other theoretical disciplines. It is therefore probable that the 
opportunity of the teacher who instructs pupils at the age of sixteen j'^ears 
and upwards is, on an average, more precious for the welfare of the indi- 
vidual than that of the teacher whose pupils are under six years. This 
advantage, however, the teacher of the youngest pupils has: that she 
may give them an influence that will cause them to continue their educa- 
tion in after-life. The primary school, with its four years' course, usually 
enrolls five pupils where the grammar-school, with a course of four years, 
enrolls only one pupil. The importance of the primary school is seen in 
the fact that it affects a much larger proportion of the inhabitants of a 
community, while the importance of the high school rests on the fact that 
its education develops insight and directive power, so that its graduates 
do most of the thinking and planning that is done for the community. 

But there are special disciplines which the child of five years may 
receive profitably, that the youth of sixteen would not find sufficiently 
productive. 

• GENERAL AND SPECIAL DISCIPLINE. 

There has been for some time a popular clamor in favor of the intro- 
duction of the arts and trades into public schools. It has been supposed 
by self-styled "practical" writers upon education that the school should 
fit the youth for the practice of some vocation or calling. They would 
have the child learn a trade as well as reading, writing, and arithmetic ; 
and the most zealous of them demand that it shall be a trade, and not 
much else. But the good sense of the educational world, as a whole, has 
not been moved to depart from the even tenor of its way, and has de- 



I 



KINDERGARTEN IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM. 629 

fended its preference for technical, conventional, and disciplinary training 
of a general cliaracter, useful for each and every one, no matter what his 
vocation shall be. Who can tell, on seeing the child, what special voca- 
tion he will best follow when he grows up? Besides this, the whole time 
of the child, so far as it can be had without overtasking him is needed 
from the period of six or seven years to sixteen years in order to give him 
a proper amount of this training in technical, conventional, and disciplin- 
ary studies. Moreover, it is evident that these general studies are the 
keys to the world of nature and man, and that they transcend in value 
any special forms of skill, such as arts and trades, by as great a degree as 
the general law surpasses the particular instance. It is to be claimed that 
arithmetic, the science of numbers, for example, is indispensable in a 
thousand arts and sciences, while each art has much in it that is special, 
and of limited application in the other arts. 

But, on the other baud, analytical investigation has done much in the 
waj' of singling out from the physical movements involved in the ti-ades 
those which are common, and may be provided for by general disciplines 
of the body, which may be introduced into the school along with the 
science underlying the art. For example, the theory and practice of 
drawing involves arithmetic and geometry, and also the training of the 
hand and eye. Thus, drawing furnishes a kind of pi'opaedeutics to all 
of the arts and trades, and could not fail to make more skillful the work- 
man, whatever his calling. Drawing, then, may properly enter the pro- 
gramme of all schools, having its claim acknowledged to be a general 
discipline. 

But while we may acknowledge the transcendent importance of the reg- 
ular branches for the period of time claimed by the school at present — 
namely, from the age of six to sixteen — it must be conceded that the age 
from four years to six years is not mature enough to receive profit from 
the studies of the school. The conventional and the disciplinary studies 
are too much for the powers of the child of four years or five years. But 
the child of four years or five years is in a period of transition out of the 
stage of education which we have named " nurture." He begins to learn 
of the out-door life, of the occupations and ways of people beyond the 
family circle, and to long for a further acquaintance with them. He be- 
gins to demand society with others of his own age outside his family, and 
to repeat for himself, in miniature, the picture of the great world of civil 
society, mimicking it in his plays and games. Through play the child 
gains individuality; his internal — " subjective," as it is called — nature be- 
comes active, and he learns to know his own tendencies and proclivities. 
Through caprice and arbitrariness, the child learns to have a will of his 
own, and not to exercise a mere mechanical compliance with the will of 
his elders. 

TRANSITION FROM HOJIE TO SCHOOL. 

It is at this period of transition from the life in the family to that of the 
school that the kindergarten furnishes what is most desirable, and, in doing 
so, solves many problems hitherto found difficult of solution. The genius 
of Froebel has provided a system of discipline and instruction which is 
wonderfully adapted to this stage of the child's growth, when he needs 



g30 KINDERGARTEN IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM. 

the gentleness of nurture and the rational order of the school in due ad- 
mixture. The " gifts and occupations," as he calls them, furnish an ini- 
tiation into the arts and sciences; and they do this in a manner half play- 
ful, half serious. 

Of the twenty gifts which the kindergarten system oilers, the first six 
form a group having the one object to familiarize the child with the ele- 
mentary notions of geometry. He learns the forms of solids, the cube, 
sphere, and cylinder, and their various surfaces — also, divisions of the 
cube, and combinations of the cube and its divisions, in building various 
objects, He learns counting and measuring by the eye, for the cube and 
its divisions are made on a scale of an inch and fractions of an inch, 
and the squares into which the surface of his table is divided are square 
inches. Counting, adding, subtracting, and dividing the parts of the cube 
give him the elementary operations of arithmetic, so far as small numbers 
are concerned, and give him a very practical knowledge of them; for he 
can use his knowledge, and he Jhiis developed it, step by step, with his own 
activity. 

It is always the desideratum in education to secure the maximum of 
self-activity in the pupil. The kindergarten gifts are the best instrumen- 
talities ever devised for the purpose of educating young children through 
self-activity. Other devices may do this — other devices have done it — but 
Froebel's apparatus is most successful. It is this fact that occasions the 
exaggerated estimate which his disciples place upon the originality of 
Froebel's methods. Long before his day, it was known and stated as the 
first principle of pedagogy that the pupil is educated, not by what others 
do for him, but by what he is led to do for himself. But Froebel's system 
of gifts is so far in advance of other systems of apparatus for primary in- 
struction as to create an impression in the mind of the one who first stud- 
ies it that Froebel is the original discoverer of the pedagogical law of self- 
activity in the pupil. The teacher who has already learned correct meth- 
ods of instruction, or who has read some in the history of pedagogy, 
knows this principle of self-activity, but has never found, outside of the 
kindergarten, so wonderful a system of devices for the proper education of 
the child of five years old. 

The first group of gifts, including the first six of the twenty, as already 
remarked, takes up the forms of solids and their division, and, therefore, 
deals with forms and number of solids. The second group of gifts includes 
the four from the seventh to the tenth, and concerns surfaces, and leads 
up from the manipulation of thin blocks or tablets to drawing with a pen- 
cil on paper ruled in squares. In drawing, the child has reached the ideal 
representation of solids by means- of light and shade — marks made on a 
surface to represent outlines. The intermediate gifts — the eighth and 
ninth — relate to stick -laying and ring laying, representing outlines of ob- 
jects by means of straight and curved sticks or wires. This, in itself, is a 
well-devised link between the quadrangular and triangular tablets (which 
are treated only as surfaces) and the art of drawing. We have a complete 
transition from the tangible solid to the ideal representation of it. 

Counting and the elementary operations in numbers continue through 
all the subsequent groups of gifts, but in the first sjoup are the chief 



KINDERGARTEN IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM. 631 

object. In the first group the solid, iu its various shapes, is the object of 
study for the child. He learns to recognize and name the surfaces, cor- 
ners, angles, etc., which bound it. In the second group, the surface, and 
its corners or angles become the sole object. But the child begins the 
second group with the surface represented by tablets, thin blocks, and 
proceeds to represent mere outlines by means of sticks or wire (in the eighth 
gift), and then to leave the scjjid form altogether and to make au ideal one 
by means of pencil-marks on slate or paper (in the tenth gift). The slate 
or paper, ruled in squares of an inch, like the kindergarten tables, is the 
best device for training the muscles of the fingers and hand to accuracj^ 
The untrained muscles of the hand of the child cannot guide the pencil so 
as to make entire forms at first; but by the device of the ruled squares he 
is enabled to construct forms by the simple process of drawing straight 
lines, vertical, horizontal, and oblique, connecting the sides and corners 
of the ruled squares. The training of the eye and hand in the use of this 
tenth gift is the surest and most effective discipline ever invented for the 
purpose. 

KINDERGARTENS PREPARE FOR TRADES. 

Here it becomes evident that, if the school is to prepare especially for 
the arts and trades, it is the kindergarten which is to accomplish the ob- 
ject ; for the training of the muscles — if it is to be a training for special 
skill in manipulation — must be begun in early youth. As age advances, 
it becomes more difficult to acquire new phases of manual dexterity. 

Two weeks' practice of holding objects in his right hand will make the 
infant, in his first year, right-handed for life. The muscles, yet in a 
pulpy consistency, are very easily set in any fixed direction. The chikl 
trained for one year on Froebel's gifts and occupations will acquire a skill- 
ful use of his hands and a habit of accurate measurement of the eye which 
will be his possession for life. 

But the arts and trades are provided for in a still more effective manner 
by the subsequent gifts. The first group, as we have seen, trains the eye 
and the sense of touch, and gives a technical acquaintance with solids, 
and with the elementary operations of arithmetic. The second group 
frees him from the hard limits which have confined him to the reproduc- 
tion of forms by mere solids, and enables him to represent by means of 
light and shade. His activity at each step becomes more purely creative 
as regards the production of forms, and more rational as regards intellec- 
tual comprehension; for he ascends from concrete, particular, tangible 
objects to abstract general truths and archetypal forms. 

The third group of gifts includes the eleventh and twelfth, and develops 
new forms of skill, less general and more practical. Having learned how 
to draw outlines of objects by the first ten gifts, the eleventh and twelfth 
gifts teach the pupil how to embroider — i. e. , how to represent outlines of 
objects by means of needle and thread. The eleventh gift takes the first 
step, by teaching the use of the perforating needle. The child learns to 
represent outlines of forms by perforations in paper orcardl)oard. Then, 
in the twelfth gift, he learns the art of embroidering; and, of course, 
with this he learns the art of sewing, and its manifold kindred arts. The 
art of embroidery calls into activity the muscles of the hand — and espe- 



632 KINDERGARTEN IN TUB PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM, 

ciiilly those of tlie fingers — the eye, in accurate measurement, and the in- 
tellectual activities required in the geometrical and arithmetical processes 
involved in the work. 

The fourth group of gifts (including the thirteenth to the eighteenth) 
introduces the important art of weaying and plaiting. 

Among the primitive arts of man this wa^ the most useful. It secures 
the maximum of lightness with the maximum of streagth, by using frag- 
ile material in such a manner as to convert the linear into the surface, and 
combine the weak materials into the form of mutual firm support. 

The thirteenth gift (with which the fourth group begins) teaches how 
to cut the paper into strips; the fourteenth weaves the strips into mats or 
baskets, with figures of various devices formed by the meshes; the fifth 
gift uses thin slats of wood for plaiting, and the sixteenth uses the same, 
jointed, with a view to reproducing forms of surfaces; the seventeenth 
gift intertwines paper, and the eighteenth constructs elaborate shapes by 
folding paper. This group constructs surfaces by the methods of com- 
bining strips, or linear material. Vessels of capacity (baskets, sieves, 
nets, etc.), clothing (of woven cloth), and shelter (tents, etc.) are furnished 
by branches of this art. 

Wood is linear in its structure, and stronger in the direction of the grain 
of the wood. Hence it became necessary to invent a mode of adding lat- 
eral strength by crossing the fibres, in the form of weaving or plaiting, in 
order to secure the maximum of strength with the minimum of bulk and 
weight. Besides wood, there are various forms of flexible plants (the wil- 
low, etc.) and textile fibres (hemp, flax, cotton, etc.) which cannot be util- 
ized except in this manner, having longitudinal but not lateral cohesion. 

In the fourth group of gifts the industrial direction of the work of the 
kindergarten becomes the most pronounced. There is more of practical 
value and less of theoretic value in its series of six gifts (thirteenth to 
eighteenth). But its disciplines are still general ones, like drawing, and 
furnish a necessary training for the hands and eyes of all who will labor 
for a livelihood; and, besides these, for all who will practice elegant em- 
ployments for relaxation (ladies' embroidery), or athletic sports and amuse- 
ments (the games and amusements that test accuracj' of hand and eye, or 
mathematical combination, marksmanship, hunting, fishing, ball-playing, 
archery, quoits, bowling, chess-playing, etc.). 

The fifth group, including the nineteenth and twentieth gifts, teaches 
the production of solid forms, as the fourth teaches the production of sur- 
faces from the linear. The nineteenth, using corks (or peas soaked in water) 
and pieces of wire or sticks of various lengths and pointed ends, imitates 
various real objects and geometrical solids by producing their outlines, 
edges, or sections. This gift, too, furnishes the preparation for drawing 
in perspective. The twentieth and last gift uses some modeling material 
(potter's clay, beeswax, or other plastic substance), and teaches modeling 
of solid objects. This group of gifts is propaedeutic to the greater part of 
the culinary arts, so far as they give shape to articles of food. It also 
prepares for the various arts of the foundr}^ — casting or modeling — of 
the pottery, etc. , and the fine arts of sculpture and the preparation of aj- 
chitectural ornament. 



KINDERGARTEN IN THS PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM. 633 

In the common school, drawing — which has obtained only a recent and 
precarious foothold in our course of study — is the only branch which is 
intended to cultivate skill in the hand and accuracy in the eye. The kin- 
dergarten, on the other hand, develops this by all of its groups of gifts. 

Not only is this training of great importance by reason of the fact that 
most children must depend largely upon manual skill for their future live- 
lihood, but, from a broader point of view, we must value skill as the great 
potcnce which is emancipating the human race from drudgery, by the aid 
of machinery. Inventions will free man from thraldom to time and 
space. 

By reason of the fact, already adverted to, that a short training of cer- 
tain muscles of the infant will be followed by the continued growth of the 
same muscles through his after life, it is clear how it is that the two years of 
the child's life (his fifth and sixth), or even one year, or a half-year, in the 
kindergarten will start into development activities of muscles and brain 
which will secure deftness and delicacy of industrial power in all after 
life. The rationale of this is found in the fact that it is a pleasure to use 
muscles already inured to use; in fact, a much-used muscle demands a 
daily exercise as much as the stomach demands food. But an unused mus- 
cle, or the mere rudiment of a muscle that has never been used, gives pain 
on its first exercise. Its contraction is accompanied with laceration of 
tissue, and followed by lameness, or by distress on using it again. Hence 
it happens that the body shrinks from employing an unused muscle, but, 
on the contrary, demands the frequent exercise of muscles already trained 
to use. Hence, in a thousand ways, unconsciou to ourselves, we manage 
to exercise daily whatever muscles we have already trained, and thus keep 
in practice physical aptitudes for skill in any direction. The carriage of 
a man who appears awkward to us is so because of the fact that he uses 
only a few muscles of his body, and holds the others under constraint as 
though he possessed no power to use thom. Freedom of body, which we 
term gracefulness, is manifested in the complete command of every limb 
by the will. This is the element of beauty in the Greek statuary. The 
gymnastic training may be easily recognized in a young man by his free 
carriage — as he moves, he uses a greater variety of muscles than the man of 
uncultivated physique. It follows that a muscle once trained to activity 
keeps itself in training, or even adds by degrees to its development, simply 
by demanding its daily exercise, and securing it by some additional move- 
ment which it has added as subsidiary to activities in which other muscles 
are chiefly concerned. In his manner of sitting or rising, of walking or 
running, even of breathing, of writing, or reading, one man varies from an- 
other through the use or disuse of subsidiary muscles, thus kept in train- 
ing or allowed to remain as undeveloped rudiments. 

I have in this protracted discussion of the significance of Froebel's 
gifts as a preparation for industrial life, indicated my own grounds for 
believing that the kindergarten is worthy of a place in the common-school 
system. It should be a sort of sub-primary education, and receive the 
pupil at the age of four or four and a half years, and hold him until he 
completes his sixth year. By this means we gain the child for one or 
two years when he is good for nothing else but education, and not of 



Q34 KINDERGARTEN IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM. 

much value even for the education of the school as it is and has been. 
The disciplines of reading and writing, geography and arithmetic, as 
taught in the ordinary primary school, are beyond the powers of the 
average child not yet entered upon his seventh year. And beyond the 
seventh year the time of the child is too valuable to use it for other than 
general disciplines — reading, writing, arithmetic, etc., and drawing. He 
must not take up his school-time with learning a handicraft. 

The kindergarten utilizes a period of the child's life for preparation for 
the arts and trades, without robbing the school of a portion of its needed 
time. 

Besides the industrial phase of the subject, which is pertinent here, we 
may take note of another one that bears indirectly on the side of produc- 
tive industry, but has a much wider bearing. At the age of three years 
the child begins to emerge from the circumscribed life of the family, an^i 
to acquire an interest in the life of society, and a proclivity to torm rela- 
tionship with it. This increases imtil the school period begins, at his 
seventh year. The fourth, fifth, and sixth years are jTars of transition, 
not well provided for either by family life or by social life in the United 
States. In families of great poverty, the child forms evil associations on 
the street, and is initiated into crime. By the time he is ready to enter 
the school he is hardened in vicious habits, beyond the power of the 
school to eradicate. In families of wealth, the custom is to intrust the 
care of the child in this period of his life to some servant without peda- 
gogical skill, and generally without strength of will-power. The chHd 
of wealthy parents usually inherits the superior directive power of the 
parents, who have by their energy acquired and preserved the wealth. 
Its manifestation in the child is not reasonable, considerate will-power, 
but arbitrariness and self-will — with such a degree of stubbornness that it 
quite overcomes the much feebler native will of the servant who has 
charge of the children. It is diflBcidt to tell which class (poor or rich) the 
kindergarten benefits most. Society is benefited by the substitution of a 
rational training of the child's will during his transition period. If lie 
is a child of poverty, he is saved by the good associations and the indus- 
trial and intellectual training that he gets. If he is a child of wealth, he 
is saved by the kindergarten from ruin through self-indulgence and the 
corruption ensuing on weak management in the family. The worst ele. 
ments in society are the corrupted and ruined men who were once 3'outh 
of unusual directive power — children of parents of strong wills. 

While the industrial preparation involved in the kindergarten exercises 
is a sufficient justification for its introduction into our school system, it 
must be confessed that this is far from satisfactory to the enthusiastic dis- 
ciples of Froebel. They see in the kindergarten the means for the moral 
regeneration of the human race, and they look upon the industrial phase 
of its results as merely incidental and of little consequence; and, indeed, 
they regard those who attempt to justify the kindergarten on an industrial 
basis as sordid materialists. That they have good reason to claim more 
than this preparation for manual arts is evident from the fact that the 
games, gifts, and occupations are symbolic, and thus propaedeutic to sub- 
sequent intellectual and moral training. Every conscious intellectual 



KINDERGARTEN IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM. G35 

phase of tlie mind has a previous phase in which it was unconscious, 
and merely symbolic. Feeling, emotion, sensibility — these are names of 
activities of the soul which become thoughts and ideas by the simple addi- 
tion of consciousness to them — i. e., the addition of rcfiCction. What smoke 
is to the clear flame, in some sort is instinct to clear rational purpose. 
Thoughts and ideas preexist, therefore, as feelings and impulses; when, 
later, they are seen as ideas, they are seen as having general form, or as 
possessing universality. As feelings, they are particular or special, having 
application only then and there; as thoughts, they are seen as general 
principles regulative of all similar exigencies. 

The nursery tale gives the elements of a thought, but in such special 
grotesque form that the child seizes only the incident. Subsequent reflec- 
tion brings together the features thus detached and isolated, and the child 
begins to have a general idea. The previous symbol makes easy and 
natural the pathway to ideas and clear thought. 

OTHER ADVANTAGES. 

Besides the industrial training (through the " gifts and occupations") 
and the symbolic culture (derived chiefly from the "games"), there is 
much else, in the kindergarten, which is common to the instruction in the 
school subsequently, and occupies the same ground. Some disciplines 
also are much more efficient in the kindergarten, by reason of its peculiar 
apparatus, than the same are or can be in the common school. 

The instruction in manners and polite habits which goes on in all well- 
conducted kindergartens is of verj^ great value. The child is taught to 
behave properly at the table, to be clean in his personal habits, to be neat 
in the arrangement of his apparatus, to practice the etiquette and ameni- 
ties of polite life. These things are much better provided, for in Froebel's 
system than elsewhere. Moreover, there is a cultivation of imagination 
and of the inventive power which possesses great significance for the 
future intellectual growth. The habits of regularity, punctuality, silence, 
obedience to established rules, self-control, are taught to as great a degree 
as is desirable for pupils of that age, but not by any means so perfectly as 
in the ordinary well-conducted primary school. The two kinds of atten- 
tion that are developed so well in a good school : (1) the attention of each 
pupil to his own task — so absorbed in it that he is oblivious to the work 
of the class that is reciting, and (2) the attention of each pupil in the class 
that is reciting, to the work of pupil reciting — the former being the atten- 
tion of industry, and the latter the attention of critical observation — are 
not developed so well as in the primary school, nor is it to be expected. 
The freedom from constraint which is essential in the kindergarten, or in 
any school for pupils of five years of age, allows much interference of 
each pupil with the work of others, and hence much distraction of atten- 
tion. It is quite difficidt to preserve an exact balance. The teacher of 
the kindergarten is liable to allow the brisk, strong-willed children to 
interfere with the others, and occupy their attention too much. 

As regards imagination and inventive power, it is easily stimulated to 
an abnormal degree. For, if it is accompanied by conceit, there is a cor- 
responding injury done to the child's faith and reverence which must 



636 KINOEKGAKTEN IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM. 

accompany his growth if lie would come to the stores of wisdom which 
his race has preserved for him. The wisest men are those who have 
availed themselves most of the wisdom of the race. Self-activity, it is 
true, is essential to the assimilation of the intellectual patrimony, but it 
is a reverent spirit only that can sustain one in the long labor of master- 
ing and acquiring that patrimony. 

The cultivation of language — of the power of expression — is much 
emphasized by the advocates of the kindergarten, and, I believe, with 
fair results. 

There is a species of philosophy sometimes connected with the system 
which undoubtedly exercises a great influence over the minds of the 
followers of Froebel. It is, apparently, a system founded on a thought 
of Schelling — the famous "identity system" — which made the absolute 
to be the indifference or identity of spirit and nature. Its defect is, 
that it deals with antitheses as resolvable only into "indifference" 
points ; hence the highest principle must be an unconscious one, 
which makes its philosophy a pantheistic system when logically carried 
out. But Froebel does not seem to have carried it out strictly. He uses 
it chiefly to build on it as a foundation his propaedeutics of reflection, or 
thinking activity. Antithesis, or the doctrine of opposites (mind and 
nature, light and darkness, sweet and sour, good and bad, etc.), belongs 
to the elementary stage of reflection. It is, however, a necessary stage 
of thought (although no ultimate one), and far above the activity of 
sense-perception. But, compared with the thinking activity of the com- 
prehending reason, it is still very crude. Moreover, from the fact that it 
is not guided by a principle above reflection, it is very uncertain. It is 
liable to fall from the stage of reflection which cognizes antithesis 
(essential relation) to that which cognizes mere difference (non-essential 
relation). Such imperfection I conceive to belong rather to some of the 
interpreters of Froebel's philosophic views than to Froebel's system as he 
understood it. It is certainly not a fault of his pedagogics. His philos- 
ophy is far deeper than that of Pestalozzi, while his pedagogical system 
is far more consistent, both in theory and in practice. 

MORAL DISCIPLINE. 

As regards the claimed transcendence of the system over all others in 
the way of moral development, I am inclined to grant some degree of 
superiority to it, but not for intrinsic reasons. It is because the child is 
then at an age when he is liable to great demoralization at home, and is 
submitted to a gentle but firm discipline in the kindergarten, that the 
new education proves of more than ordinary value as a moral discipline. 
The children of the poor, at the susceptible age of five years, get many 
lessons on the street that tend to corrupt them. The children of the rich, 
meeting no wholesome restraint, become self-willed and self-indulgent. 
The kindergarten may save both classes, and make rational self-control 
take the place of unrestrained, depraved impulse. 

But the kindergarten itself has dangers. The cultivation of self-activity 
may be excessive, and lead to pertness aad conceit. The pupil may get 
to be irreverent and overbearing — hardened against receiving instruction 



KINDERGARTEN IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM. 637 

from others. lu fact, with a teacher whose discernment is dimmed by 
too much sentimental theory, there is great danger that the weeds of 
selfishness will thrive faster among the children than the wholesome 
plants of self-knowledge and self-control. The apotheosis of childhood 
and infancy is a very dangerous idea to put in practice. It does well 
enough in "Wordsworth's great ode, as a sequence of the doctrine of 
preexistence; and it is quite necessary that we should, as educators, 
never forget that the humblest child — nay, the most depraved child — has 
within him the possibility of the highest angelic being. But this angelic 
nature is only implicit, and not explicit, in the child or in the savage, or 
in the uneducated. To use the language of Aristotle, the undeveloped 
human being is a "first entelechy," while the developed, cultured man is 
a "second entelechy." Both are, "by nature," rational beings; but only 
the educated, moral, and religious man is rational actually. " By nature " 
signifies "potentially," or " containing the possibility of." 

NATURE AND NATURAL METHODS. 

There is no technical expression in the history of pedagogy with which 
more juggling has been done than with the word "nature." As used by 
most writers, it signifies the ideal or normal type of the growth of any 
thing. The nature of the oak realizes itself in the acorn-bearing monarch 
of the forest. The nature of man is realized in the angelic, god-like 
being whose intellect, and will, and emotions are rational, moral, and 
pervaded by love. We hear the end of education spoken of as the har- 
monious development of human nature, physical, intellectual, moral, and 
affectional. This "nature," in the sense of ideal or normal type, is, 
however, liable to be confounded with "nature "in the opposite sense, 
viz., nature as the external world (of unconscious growth). This con- 
fusion is the worst that could happen, when we are dealing with the 
problem of human life; for man, by nature (as unconscious growth), is 
only the infant or savage — the mere animal — and his possible angelic 
" nature " is only possible. Moreover, this possibility never will become 
actuality except through his own self-activity: he must make himself 
rational, for nature as the external world will never do this for him. 
Indeed, where nature as the external (unconscious) world is most active 
in its processes — say, in the torrid zone — there the development of man 
will be most retarded. Nature as external world is a world of depend- 
ence, each thing being conditioned by everything else, and hence under 
fate. The humblest clod on the earth pulsates with vibrations that have 
traveled hither from the farthest star. Each piece of matter is neces- 
sitated to be what it is by the totality of conditions. But the nature of 
man — human nature — must be freedom, and not fate. It must be self- 
determined, and not a mere "thing'' which is made to be what it is by 
the constraining activity of the totality of conditions. Hence, those who 
confuse these two meanings of "nature " juggle with the term, and in one 
place mean the rational ideal of man — the self -determining mind — and in 
another place they mean a thing, as the product of nature as external 
world. The result of this juggling is the old pedagogical contradiction 
found in Rousseau throughout, and now and then in the systems of all 



63S KINDERGARTEN IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM. 

Other pedagogical reformers — Pestalozzi ia particular, and even in Locke 
before Rousseau. 

To become rational, man must learn to practise self-control, and to sub- 
stitute moral purpose for mere impulse. Man inherits from nature, in 
time and space, impulses and desires ; and, as subject to them, he is only 
a Prometlieus Vinctus — a slave of appetite and passion, like all other ani- 
mals. The infant begins his existence with a maximum of unconscious 
impulse, and a minimum of conscious, rational, moral purpose. The dis- 
ciple of Froebel who apotheosizes infancy, and says, vdth Wordsworth, — 

"Heaven lies about ub in our infancy," 
and who thinks that the child is a — 

" Mighty prophet 1 Seer blest, 
On whom those truths do rest 
Which we are toiling all our lives to find," 

is prone to regard the kindergarten as a "child's paradise," wherein he 
should be allowed to develop unrestrainedly, and the principle, laissez 
faire — "let him alone" — is to fill the world with angels. 

This belief in the perfection of nature is the arch-heresy of education. 
It is more dangerous because it has a side of deepest tnith — the truth 
which makes education possible, viz., the truth that man possesses the 
capacity for self -regeneration — the capacity of putting off his natural im- 
pulses and desires, his animal selfishness, and of putting on righteousness 
and holiness. His ideal nature must be made real by himself in order to 
be. His real nature, as a product of time and space, must be annulled 
and subordinated, and his ideal nature be made real in its place. 

The child as individual, and without availing himself of the help of his 
fellows, is a mere slave, a thing, a being controlled by fate. Through 
participation with his fellow-men united into institutions — those infinite, 
rational organisms, the product of the intellect and will of the race con- 
spiring through the ages of human history and inspired by the Divine pin-- 
pose which rules all as Providence — through participation in institutions, 
man is enaoled to attain freedom, to complement his defects as individual 
by the deeds of the race ; he subdues nature in time and space, and makes 
ix his servant ; he collects the shreds of experience from the individuals 
of the race, and combines them into wisdom, and preserves and transmits 
the same from generation to generation ; he invents the instrumentalities 
of intercommunication — the alphabet, the art of printing, the telegraph 
and railroad, the scientific society, the publishing-house, the book- store, 
the library, the school, and, greater than all, the newspaper. The poor 
squalid individual, an insignificant atom in space and time, can, by the 
aid of these great institutions, lift himself up to culture, and to the infini- 
tude of endless development. From being mere individual, he can 
become generic — i. e., realize in himself the rationality of the entire 
species of the human race. By education we mean to do exactly this 
thing ; to give to the individual the means of this participation in the 
aggregate labors of all humanity. 

Hence we are bound to consider education practically, as a process of 
initiating the particular individual into the life of his race as intellect 
and will-power. We must give to a child the means to help himself, and 



KINDERGARTEN IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM. 639 

the habit and custom of helping himself, to participate in the labors of 
his fellowmen, and to become a contributor to the store created by man- 
kind. Institutions, — the family: civil society, with its arts, and trades, 
and professions, and establishments, schools, etc. ; the state, with its 
more comprehensive organizations; and, finally, the church: — these are 
greater than the individual, and they are products of his ideal nature, 
and exist solely as means whereby the individual may develop his ideal. 

The kindergarten, then, has the same general object that the school 
has had all along — to eliminate the merely animal from the child, and to 
develop in its place the rational and spiritual life. 

EDUCATIVE PtJNCTION OF PLAT. 

Now, as regards the science of the kindergarten, there is one more con- 
sideration which is too important to pass by — the theory of play as an 
educational element. 

The school had been too much impressed with the main fact of its 
mission — viz., to eliminate the animal nature and to superinduce the 
spiritual nature — to notice the educative function of play. Froebel was 
the first to fully appreciate this, and to devise a proper series of dis- 
ciplines for the youngest children. The old regime of the school did not 
pay respect enough to the principle of self-activity. It sacrificed spon- 
taneity in an utterly unnecessary manner, instead of developing it into 
rational self-determination. Hence it produced human machines, gov- 
erned by prescription and conventionality, and but few enlightened spon- 
taneous personalities who possessed insight as well as law-abiding habit. 
Such human machines, governed by prescription, would develop into 
law-breakers or sinners the moment that the pressure of social laws 
was removed from them. They did not possess enough individuality of 
their own. They had not assimilated what they had been compelled to 
practice. They were not competent to readjust themselves to a change 
of surroundings. 

Now, in play, the child realizes for himself his spontaneity, but in its 
in-ational form of arbitrariness and caprice. In its positive phase he pro- 
duces whatever his fancy dictates; in its negative phase he destroys again 
what he has made, or whatever is his own. He realizes by tliese opera- 
tions the depth of originality which his will-power involves — the power to 
create and the power to destroy. This will-power is the root of his per- 
sonality — the source of his freedom. Deprive a child of his play, and 
you produce arrested development in his character. Nor can his play be 
rationalized by the kindergarten so as to dispense altogether with the 
utterly spontaneous, untamed play of the child — wherein he gives full 
scope to his fancy and caprice — without depriving* his play of its essen- 
tial character, and changing it from play into work. Even in the kinder- 
garten, just as in the school, there must be prescription. But the good 
kindergarten wisely and gently controls, in such manner as to leave room 
for much of the pure spontaneity of play. It prescribes tasks, but pre- 
serves the form of play as much as is possible. If the child were held to a 
rigid accountability in the kindergarten for the performance of his task, it 
would then cease to be play, and become labor. Labor performs the pre- 



640 KINDERGARTEN IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM. 

scribed task. Play prescribes for itself. The attempt to preserve the 
form of self prescription for the child iu his tasks is what saves the kinder- 
garten from being a positive injury to the child at tliis tender and imma- 
ture age. It is the preservation of the form of play, and at the same 
time the induction of the substancs of prescription, that constitutes what 
is new and valuable in Froebel's method of instruction. There is a gentle 
insinuation of habits of attention, of self-control, of action in concert, of 
considerateness towards others, of desire to participate in the common re- 
sult of the school, that succeeds is accomplishing this necessary change of 
heart in the child — from selfishness to self-renunciation — without sacri- 
ficing his spontaneity so much as is done in the old-fashioned primary 
school. And he gets large measures of the benefits of the school that he 
would have lost had he remained at home in the family. The child, too, 
at this period of life has begun to experience a hunger for the more sub' 
stantial things of social life, and the family alone cannot satisfy his long- 
ings. The discovery of Froebel gives the child what is needed of the 
substantial effects of the school without the danger of roughly crushing 
out his individuality at the same time. 

PRACTICAL CONDITIONS NECESSABY FOR SUCCESS. 

After we have decided in the affirmative the essential questions relative 
to the reasonableness of the course of study and discipline of the kinder- 
garten, its suitability to the age of the children, its effect upon the educa- 
tion that follows it, we come to the subsidiary questions regarding expense, 
training of teachers, and the details of management. These questions 
are not important, unless the decision is reached that the kindergarten 
theory is substantially correct. If it is found to be a valuable adjunct to 
the school, then we must solve the practical problems of how to intro- 
duce it into the public school system. The problem is, how to meet the 
expense. If the traditional form of the kindergarten be adopted, that of 
one teacher to each dozen pupils, and this constituting an isolated kinder- 
garten, the annual cost of tuition would be from $50 to $100 per pupil, a 
sum too extravagant to be paid by any public school system. The average 
tuition per pupil in public school systems of the United States ranges 
from $12 to $20 for the year's schooling of 200 days. No school board 
would be justified in expending five times as much per pupil for tuition 
in a kindergarten as it expended for the tuition of a pupil in the primary or 
grammar school. 

If it is necessary to limit the number of pupils per teacher to twelve or 
twenty, while in the primary school each teacher can manage and properly 
instruct fifty or t^eventy, it becomes likewise necessary to invent a system 
of cheaper teachers. At once the Lancasterian system — or the "moni- 
torial " system — suggests itself as a model for the organization of the 
cheap kindergarten. The kindergarten shall be a large one, located in a 
room of ample size to hold five to ten tables, each table to have fifteen 
cliildren attending it, and presided over by a novitiate teacher; and the 
whole room shall be placed under the charge of a thoroughly competent 
teacher, of experience and skill, and well versed in the theory and practice 
of Froebel's system. The director of the kindergarten must be a well- 



KINDERGARTEN IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM. 641 

paid teacher, receiving as much as the principal of a primary school, with 
two assistants. Her assistants, the "novitiate teachers," are learners of 
the system. The first year they sliall be volunteers, and receive no salary; 
the second year, eras soon as they pass the first examination in theory 
and practice of the kindergarten, they are to receive a small salary as 
"paid assistants." After a year's service as paid assistants they lua/ pass 
a second examination, and, if found competeut, be appointed directors, 
and receive a higher salary. 

In the St. Louis kindergartens, the number of 60 pupils entitles the 
director to one paid assistant, and there is one additional appointed for 
each 30 pupils above that number. Thus, there would be a director and 
four paid assistants if the kindergarten had 150 pupils. (The director 
would, in St. Louis, receive $350 per annum, and each paid assistant $125 
per anu\im. The cost of tuition — based on teachers' salaries — would be 
$850 per annum for the 150 pupils, being less than $6 per anmim for 
each.) , 

Beside the salaried teachers of the kindergarten, it is expected that 
there will be an equal or greater number of volunteers. In order to make 
it Avorth while for volunteers to join the system, as well as to secure the 
development of the salaried teachers, 'it is necessary to have two persons, 
of superior ability, that can give instruction, once a week, on the theory 
and practice (the "gifts and occupations ") of Froebel's system. A young 
woman will find so much culture of thought to be derived from the dis- 
cussion of Froebel's insights and theories, and so much peculiarly fitting 
experience from her daily class in the kindergarten — experience that will 
prove invaluable to her as a wife and mother — that she will serve her 
apprenticeship in the kindergarten gladly, though it be no part of her 
intention to follow teaching as a vocation. 

It is a part of the system, as an adjunct to the public schools, to edu- 
cate young women in these valuable matters relating to the early training 
of children. I have thought that the benefit derived by the 200 young 
women of the St. Louis kindergartens from the lectures of Miss Blow to 
be of sufficient value to compensate the city for the cost of the kinder- 
gartens. A nobler and more enlightened womanhood will result, and the 
family will prove a better nurture for the child. 

Here we come upon the most important practical difficulty in the way 
of the general introduction of the kindergarten. If the teachers are no 
better than the average mothers in our families, if they are not better than 
the average primary teacher, it is evident that the system of Froebel can- 
not effect any great reform in society. "It is useless to expect social 
regeneration from persons who are not themselves regenerated."^' 

In our St. Louis work we have been very fortunate in having a lady of 
great practical sagacity, of profound and clear insight,, and of untiring 
energy to organize our kindergartens and instruct our teachers. Her 
(Miss Susan E. Blow's) disinterested and gratuitous services have been 
the means of securing for us a system that now furnishes its own direc- 
tors, assistants, and supervisors. 

There is another important point connected with the economy of the 
kindergarten. The session should not last over three hours for the chil- 

41 



642 KINDERGARTEN IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM. 

dren of this age. Hence eacli room permits two sessions to be held in it 
per day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, thus accommodat- 
ing double the number of pupils. In some cases, where the teacher has 
attained experience and strength sufficient, she teaches in both sessions, 
and receives a higher grade of salary for the work.* 

The furniture of the kindergarten is made up of small, movable chairs, 
and small tables, each one capable of accommodating two children — the 
surface of the table being marked off into divisions one inch square. It 
is better to use the small tables than large ones that will accommodate a 
whole class, for the small ones may be moved easily and combined into 
large ones of any desirable size, and may be readily arranged into any 
shape or figure, and placed in any part of the room, by the children them- 
selves. It is necessary to use the floor of the room during one exercise each 
day for the games, at which time all the children are collected " on the 
circle " ; at this time it may be desirable to remove the tables to the sides 
of the room, and with small tables this can be easily accomplished. 
Again, in the absence of one of the teachers, it may become necessary to 
combine two classes into one, uniting two tables. The small tables are 
therefore an important item in the economy of the kindergarten. 

With these suggestions, I leave the subject, believing they are sufficient 
to justify the directors of our public schools in making the kindergarten 
c part of our school system. The advantage to the community in utiliz- 
ing the age from four to six; in training the hand and eye; in developing 
habits of cleanliness, politeness, self-control, urbanity, industry; in train- 
ing the mind to understand numbers and geometric forms, to invent com- 
binations of figures and shapes, and to represent thcrr? with the pencil — 
these and other valuable lessons in combination with theii fellow-pupils 
and obedience to the rule of their superiors — above cll, the youthful sug- 
gestions as to methods of instruction which will come from the kinder- 
garten and penetrate the methods of the other schools — will, I think, 
ultimately prevail in securing to us the establishment of this beneficent 
institution in all the city school-systems of our country. 

*In St. Louis, directors receive $600 for two sessions per day, and J350 for one session ; 
paid assistants receive $125 for one session, and $200 per annum for two daily sessions. 



KINDERGARTEN METHODS IN PUBLIC PRIMARY SCHOOLS. 

BY MRS LOUISE POLLOCK, 
Principal of Kiudergarten Normal Institute of Washington, D. C. 



LECTURE TO THE PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS. 

Since it may yet be some time ere tliis city will give its citizens the free 
Kindergarten, 1 have invited the Public School teachers here to night, to 
explain to them, in as concise a manner as possible, the distinctive features 
of the Kindergarten system, which is called by Frederic Frcebel, its dis- 
coverer, ' ' Nature's Method of Education. " You may find some of its edu- 
cational principles and methods adapted to the primary grades of the pul)lic 
schools, and incorporate them with your own to the great advantage of 
your pupils. 

In the true Kindergarten the children are to be under six years of age, 
but where children have never enjoyed the benefits of this system at home 
or in the Kindergarten proper, children over six years of age, you will 
find, enjoy all the exercises designed for younger children, only their 
advancement from the most simple to the difficxilt will be more rapid, and 
the conversations and instructions accompanying the occupations must be 
adapted to their age. 

The opening exercises in the first grade or lower primary school might 
well be the .same as in the Kindergarten, namely: singing, conversation, 
and stories, as well as the learning of the songs or games which are on 
the programme of the day, — for there needs to be a regiilar programme, 
and each day should have its own occupations and plays, which are 
divided into four different kinds, — but to classify and describe these would 
recpiire one or two separate lectures. 

In the primary school as well as in the Kindergarten, the observing and 
reasoning faculties of young children should be developed first by inspec- 
tion and experiments, made with the various gifts, and repeated with 
other objects having similar properties. Thus the little ball, the first gift, 
is spun around and we sing: 

See me spinnin;; round and round. 
Never idle am 1 found. 

Another day this spinning around is done with the wooden sphere of 
the second gift upon a plate, singing: 

No matter how first I spin or race, 
I always show the same rouml face. 

"With this play the children make the additional observation that it 
spins not only aroimd itself, but also around the center of the plate. 
Again when making a little clay ball, on modeling days, they find out 
that it cannot roll if it has any corners or edges. This experience has 
also been gained while presenting the cube of the second gift. 



644 KINDERGARTEN METHODS IN PUBLIC PRIMARY SCHOOLS. 

Everything around us has a language, and it is the part of the educator 
to make this language understood to the child, or it may go through life 
with eyes that do not see, and ears that do not hear, and a mind that does 
not understand. 

Lessons simple and advanced may well be given with the first gift, on 
color, material, motions, qualities, and uses of this gift, in accordance 
with the age of the child, or tlie time he has attended the Kindergarten. 

The child, in playing with the second gift, is led to find out the sim- 
ilarities and differences of his soft ball and the wooden sphere ; the cylin- 
der is presented and when spun round shows the sphere : 

When I spin you around, my dear, ■ 
Then we see a little sphere. 
When we spin the cylinder around, 
Then a little sphere is found. 
When we spin you round, my dear, 
All your edges disappear. 

Perhaps without this play the child would not have noticed that the 
cylinder had any edges. The cube of the second gift offers also a large 
field for comparing and experimenting which shall load the child to dis- 
cover the peculiar form and characteristics of the cube : 

One face only now you see, 
Where may all the others be? 

To make the child notice the plurality of faces. Or: 
When we spin you around, my dear, 
All your corners disappear. 
When we spin the cube around, 
Then a cylinder is found. 

This gift could also be advantageously used in the first grade of the 
primary schools when the children have had no previous Kindergarten 
training.* 

The third gift is the cube divided into eight smaller cubes, which leads 
to a closer intimacy and analysis of its form and uses. 

Ever having nature for his guide, Froebel would have system and 
organization in the manner of presenting this gift, first as a whole, then 
analyzed or taken to pieces; then made whole again, when the play is 
finished. This not only satisfies the child's curiosity and desire for break- 
ing things, but develops the constructive instinct, which, after building 
with the blocks, restores and reconstructs the previous order and original 
form, and is gratified by making whole what has been destroj^ed. 

"With this and all the gifts the child is made acquainted with the 
law of oppositcs and of combinations or connections, which leads him 
to take delight in symmetrical forms and harmonious designs and inven- 
tions of his own. This gift would be most useful in the primary school, 
succeeded by and in combination with the fourth gift, which is the cube 
divided into eight oblongs. Lessons in arithmetic can be given with the 
very best results, with tliese gifts as well as with the fifth gift, which is the 

* In our lectures to the normal pupils we fully explain the reasons why Froebel selected 
his various gifts and how they will lead to higher education. 



KINDERGARTEN METHODS IN PUBLIC PRIMARY SCHOOLS. 645 

cube divided diagonally into halves, quarters, thirds. For this gift is 
composed of twenty-seven cubes, and offers a far richer field for amuse- 
ment and instruction than the third or fourth gift. This gift may be used 
not only in the second grade but also in the third grade of the public 
schools, to the great intellectual progress and advantage of children, who 
have never enjoyed previous Kindergarten training. One of the thirds of 
this cube being cut diagonally, the child may learn that one-third and 
one-half of one third are the exact half of his whole twenty-seven cubes, 
or of the three thirds of his cube. With the solid triangles of this gift, 
one placed upon the other, he can form the triangular or the square prism, 
and in connection with the box of geometrical forms may distinguish the 
difference between the pyramid and the prism, and the cone and the pyra- 
mid; he can form also square, oblong, hexagonal, or octagonal buildings, 
and if the teacher has had the proper normal training, she may also teach 
in this connection the various styles of architecture with the object les- 
son, which precedes the building with children in the primary grades. 

The same may be said of the sixth gift, which is equally useful, and 
permits of even more pleasing structures, and may be used with equally 
good results to convey impressions in I'cgard to form, space, and number. 
As you will observe, there is a close connection and careful guiding from 
the most simple to the more complex. Thus while in the previous six 
gifts the child has had solid bodies to handle and play with, which 
appeal more directly to his senses, now, the seventh gift, the laying tab- 
lets, the child is occupied with the faces only of his previous solid toys. 
His taste and ingenuity of design, his unconscious comprehension of the 
law of opposites, now comes into fuller play. 

With this occupation the child becomes familiar with all the various 
angles which he outlines with another gift, the little round sticks. 

This gift of " laying sticks " is to lead from the planes or faces of solid 
bodies to their edges or outlines, and is a fair preparation to the succeed- 
ing drawing occupation, by means of which the child embodies the forms 
of things conceived or perceived by his mind. The rings lead him to a 
still higher appreciation of facts and a just appreciation of what is correct 
and beautiful in outline. 

The occupation of sewing is in direct harmony with the drawing and 
all other occupations which describe the outline or edges of anything, and 
is a harmonious sequence to the perforating occupation, which rests on 
the principle of leading the child from the outline or edges of a body to 
its corners or points, which are brought into relation or connected again 
by the thread or stitch from point to point. The same is done with the 
peas- work, where the edges, represented by wires and connected at the 
corners by peas, serve the admirable purpose of showing the perspective 
outlines of figures and forms. These two occupations are very delight- 
ful to the child, as they gratify his ideality, his inborn desire for activity, 
and under systematic direction develop skill and invention. 

The perforating should not be used by anyone who has not been prop- 
erly trained in the rules which regulate its use, or it may lead to injury 
of the eyes. 



646 KINDERGARTEN METHODS IN PUBLIC PRlMARif SCHOOLS 

The interlacing slats prepare for the weaving with paper; many of the 
instructions given with the previous gifts may be repeated under a new 
guise. The weaving leads us back from combining edges to planes, and 
with the modeling in clay we return to solid bodies. 

The folding in paper leads to many observations, useful as a foundation 
for higher scientific education, while it cultivates accuracy of eye and 
hand, most useful in every vocation in life. 

The same may be said of the cutting in paper, where the additional 
lesson of political economy is inculcated, in so far as the children are 
taught to save every little piece that falls off in order to give it its appro 
priate place and so let it form an additional feature of the beauty of the 
figure attained. They also learn thereby that everything is good and fills 
a useful part if it is in its appropriate place. 

All these gifts, with the exception, perhaps, of the modeling, which 
involves considerable labor on the teacher's part, of washing hands and 
clearing away, may be a source of delightful observations and instruc- 
tions in the primary school to children from six to ten years of age. 

I am positive that when the teachers of the public schools shall have 
received the Kindergarten normal training, they will be an.xious to devote 
one hour each day to kindergarten methods, and thc}^ will find that tlie 
children advance just as fast, if not more rapidly, in their elementary 
pursuits, and have a clearer comprehension of all they learn. 

Miss Clara Heald, a teacher of a third grade public school in this city, 
gives her testimony to this effect: That whereas she had been teaching as 
a matter or duty in regular prescribed methods, with no particular inter- 
est in the children, as soon as she had advanced to a certain degree in her 
Kindergarten normal training, with my daughter and myself, she began 
to make use of her instructions. The result was most gratifying to her; 
not only were the children much intei-estcd in the process of learning 
through doing, but she enjoyed her school far more, began to love her 
pupils individually, and to look upon her teacher's profession as an 
ennobling, honorable, beneficent work. Stories and exercises intended 
for very young children were relished and gave pleasurable instruction to 
children from eight to twelve years of age, because they were what they 
needed, and had been, as I may say, cheated out of, in earlier childhood." 
A Kindergarten is considered a 'play school, and children over seven 
years of age feel almost ashamed to go to one. But our private Kinder- 
gartens could not exist if they limited their instructions to children of the 
Kindergarten age. We therefore have graded classes in our Kindergar- 
tens, and separate teachers, who give instruction adapted to the age of the 
pupils. This affords our normal pupils an opportunity to observe the 
practical application of Kindergarten methods at different stages of the 
children's advancement and ages. The Kindergarten is truly a place 
where the children learn how to play in such a manner that the founda- 
tion is laid for unselfish, law-abiding citizenship. 

Here, also, they daily listen to the kind of sermon which children 
can understand and profit by, namely, the sweet and simple parables 
which come in and are suggested by the various forms they build, sew, or 
model. Here they learn, perhaps for the first time, that their little indi- 



r 



Kindergarten methods in public primary schools. 647 

viduality is only a part of one great whole; and although at home they 
may be permitted to rule every one, here others have as much right as 
they, and they begin to feel the natural consequences of their actions. 
The Kindergartner needs to be a person of superior judgment, possessed 
of refinement of manners, and of a strong will, yet withal respecting the 
will of others, and ever ready to examine herself carefully and conscien- 
tiously to find out if what she desires is simply the expression of her own 
self-will, or if it is dictated by her desii-e for the highest good of the child 
in her charge. She must feel that it is her duty to train and direct the 
will of her pupils into right and virtuous paths, but that it is by no means 
her business, or anybody else's, to break the will of the child, that great 
moral force, which he will need so much for every action of his life. We 
should rather give it wholesome exercise, by giving the child opportunity 
to decide questions for himself whenever an opportunity arises; for 
instance, in the choice of colors when giving out the balls, and in the 
formation of figures and invention of designs after his short dictation lesson 
is over. Every educator should always be ready to imagine herself in the 
child's place; she needs to be full of sympathy and ever ready to render 
such assistance that, while it prevents his becoming discouraged, will 
bring out the child's self-activity and desire to do for himself, which, 
together with perseverance and neatness of execution, must be encourrged 
at every step. Above and over all, she piust be conscious of the fearful 
responsibility she assumes when she becomes the molherly guide of j^oung 
children, and ever treat the children in such a manner as she would that 
others should treat hers. Her ready sympathy, the stories, and the har- 
monious manner of conducting the musical plays, her gentle and impartial 
manner of settling all their little troubles and disputes, and her suggest- 
ing the manner of disposing of their little handiwork; these are the 
moral agents for developing the affectionate and spiritual element of 
children in th.e Kindergarten. 

I will now, in as brief a manner as possible, recapitulate the main 
features which characterize the Kindergarten, and the objects attainable 
by the general adoption of its methods in our primary schools. 
The peculiar features of the Kindergarten are as follows:* 
1. (a) The Kindergarten training aims to bring harmony to the child's 
own being; between the expression of his thoughts, his feelings, and his 
willpower; his will and his reflections or reason. (5) It aims to show 
him his true relation to his surroundings, his playmates, friends. The 
result should be his delight in peaceful, affectionate intercourse with 
others, (c) It aims to lead the child to feel himself one with nature and 
obedient to nature's laws. He shall make correct observations with the 
aid of the Kindergartner, he shall make correct imitations of natural 
objects, and by means of child-like, familiar conversation he shall peep 
into her secret workshop, and learn to admire the beauty and order of its 
organization. He will thereby learn to love its phenomena, the living cre- 
ation, and learn to respect nature's laws everywhere and at all times, (d) 
Finally, the child shall be led to feel himself in harmony with what is 

• KOhler's Practical and Theoretical Kindergarten Guide. 



g48 KINDERGARTEN METHODS IN PUBLIC PRIMARY SCHOOLS. 

good, noble, and true; in harmony with God, and to grow into child-like 
relations to Him. 

2. The Kindergartner, to be able to carrj^ out the above aims of educa- 
tion, needs to be conscious of her work, and understand what are the 
results, and how to employ the law of opposites and their connection or 
harmonious relationship and combination. She must realize that in order 
to arrive at a clear comprehension of what anything is, she must tirst find 
out what it is not; for there can be no comparison or correct impression 
without contrasts or opposites being brought to notice ; for example, we 
could not decide that it was a warm day if the temperature were always 
the same; that it was day if there were no night; that anything is right if 
there were no left; that anything is high without there being its opposite. 
The law of opposites rules our universe ; and the work of civilization, of 
education, and of religion, natural and revealed, is, to bring these opposites 
into harmonious union, and for everything to fill its own highest sphere of 
usefulness, that it was intended to fill bj^ a wise creator. The early train- 
ing of the child should aim to make him conscious that he fills an important 
part when he experiences harmonious relations with himself, with nature, 
his neighbors, and his God. The Kindergartner must always appeal to 
the highest motives in the child's soul, not to his selfish or emulative 
spirit; only the spirit of love must pervade the atmosphere of the Kinder- 
garten. She must offer no medals nor prizes. She must realize that it is 
in her power to awaken, fan, and strengthen the tiny germs of goodness, 
which are born in every child. 

The natural characteristics of the child may be led in two opposite 
directions by the influence of circumstances and education. Thus the 
naturally timid child may become a modest being, or one who is abject, 
cringing; one who is daring, full of rougish activity, may grow to be 
energetic, executive, noble, and daring, or he may develop into a rude and 
cruel character without the fear of God or man. 

It requires the utmost care and trouble to keep what we call the evil 
propensities in a dormant, inactive state, or to direct them in such ways 
that what would have been a vice becomes a virtue; and the sooner atten- 
tion is given to this work the more satisfactory will be the result. Frce- 
bel's Pla^s with the Baby are a faithful guide to the educator. 

I do not claim that the Kindergarten system regenerates those who are 
born with unfortunate organizations, but it surely modifies all evil pro- 
pensities, it prevents a great deal of crime, hardness of heart, idle and 
vicious habits. And although it may be said your own children and 
pupils are not as good as they ought to be with the advantages they have 
enjoyed, I can truthfully assert, they would not have been as good as 
they are if they had not had them. "We should not undervalue the ser- 
vices of a physician who keeps the family from getting sick." It is the 
same with the Kindergarten system, whose great merit is in preventing 
harm and the growth of evil. 

4. The Kindergarten can fulfil its duties to the child only when it pre- 
serves the family spirit with motherly affections on the teacher's part, and 
perfect confidence and respect on the children's part, while at the same 
time it constitutes a little community, where the rights of all are respected 



KINDERGARTEN METHODS IN PUBLIC PRIMARY DCHOOLS. 649 

and the social instinct of the child is gratified. Early shall the child learn 
and ac(iuire habits of politeness, observe the consequences of selfishness 
or rudeness, and enjoy the beauty of order, mutual helpfulness and even 
self-sacrifice, which, however, must always be spontaneous, not incited hj 
outside influence, though we should not refuse to praise him; nor should 
we neglect to always set an example to him. 

5. Another important and peculiar feature of the Kindergarten train- 
ing is, that it considers the child, almost from its birth, as an active, cre- 
ative being. We respect the acquisition of knowledge and the proficiency 
of useful accomplishments but merely as the means of increased power 
for good actions. Words and deeds which bespeak the noble character, 
to these humanity owes its greatest debt of gratitude. Therefore Avould 
Froebel have us encourage the child's inborn desire for creative activity, 
and b}^ no means repress it. Vacancj^ of nund and idleness of hand arc 
the worst enemies to the child's moral nature and progress. 

6. In the Kindergarten there should not be any regular hearing of 
lessons, as in school, nor the same repressive discipline and spirit of 
routine. 

7. In the Kindergarten proper, for children under six j'cars of age, 
there should be no books nor drilling, but here the Kindergartner or 
teacher should place herself on the child's plane, and amuse by child- 
like stories and conversations while occupying and entertaining with such 
occupations as are pleasing and adapted to the child's limited pov.-ers, and 
j^et exert the right educational and developing influences. His little hands 
shall gain delicacy and profiency of touch and manipulation, and his mind 
shall be trained in the virtues of patience and perseverance. He shall also 
be cheered and animated by sweet and lively songs and games calculated 
to make him physically strong and active. 

8. There should be, if possible, a garden connected with every Kinder- 
garten. 

The objects of the Kindergarten are : 

1. That the child shall be prepared to become a happy, useful, virtu- 
ous citizen. 

The little songs, mostly accompanied by motions, which are contained 
in Frajbel's ]\Iother's Book of Song and Play, published by Lee ifc Shepard, 
are a guide to mothers and Kiudergartners how to develop the physical 
and moral nature of the child by such means. 

In my lectures to mothers I use my own translations, which will be 
published this (1880) summer. 

The ladies who in eight months' time do all the Kindergarten work 
which children receive when they remain four j'ears in the Kindergarten, 
have invariably expressed the conviction that not only has the work been 
to them a great benefit and pleasure, while their hand, eye, and powers of 
observation received superior training, but their whole life, their relation 
toward children and toward humanity in general have become so essen- 
tially enlightened and awakened to activity, that all they had previously 
learned seemed to be recalled to memory and to find a proper use. So 
that it seems a matter of regret that every young woman should not 
receive this training, which is of so much more importance to their owu 



650 KINDERGARTEN METHODS IN PUBLIC PRIMARY SCHOOLS. 

welfare find to that of the rising, generation than many of the accom- 
plishments upon which money and years of time are lavishly expended. 

The gifts and occupations, if used in the systematic, orderly, but not 
pedantic manner indicated to the normal student, will feed, not quench, 
the child's natural thirst for knowledge and investigation, develop his 
creative and inventive spirit, train his eye to notice small divergences, 
give him accuracy of detail and execution, and familiarity with geomet- 
rical terms and meaning, through the intelligent use of and play Avith 
such toys as are calculated to produce this result. 

The greatest value of the Kindergarten is that: 

1. It is a moral agent Avhich exercises not only an elevating influence 
on the rising generation, but also reaches the parents and enriches their 
ideas of education. 

2. It paves the way to an education in accordance with and not against 
nature. The children learn by doing. Thinking and acting, sentiment 
and realit}^ desire or will, and execution or doing — observations and facts 
are here as closely related as the spring to the brook, one is inseparable 
from the other. 

3. The Kindergarten system leads to a better comprehension of child- 
nature and a more rational treatment of and intercourse with children. 

4. It seems to be the only existing institution where mothers may learn 
the true and right method for educating their children. 



NOTE. 

Mrs. Louise Pollock, born in Prussia, became interested in Froebel's ideas and 
the Kiudurgarten from an ariicle in the Christian Examiner in 1859, and interviews -with 
Miss Peabody in Boston. In 1863-4 she translated for Nichols and Noyes The Paraclif^e of 
Childhood, by Mrs. LinalMorgenstern : and with Madame 'Ronge's Kindergarten Gi/ide, 
and Mrs. Mann's Moral Culture of Irifancy find her own motherly instincts, began to prac- 
tice Frcebers gifts in her own nursery, and in a Kindergarten, opened by Mr. Allen in his 
Classical School at West Newton, where she was then residing. In lSOt-5 she wrote 
a series of articles for the Friend of Progress, published by Jlr. Churles Plumb in New 
Tork, explaining the principle^ and the gifts and occupations of the Kindergarten. 

In ISGi) Mrs. Pollock sent her daughter, then eightjen, to Berlin, where she took; the 
Motlier's Course with Lina Morgenstern,anda full Teacher's Course in the Berlin Frauen- 
Yerein, under Ilerr Luther, enjoyingopportnnities of obsen-ationiu several Kindergartens 
there. After spending six months in Paris, Miss Pollock returned to enter on her work 
as Kindergartner in Boston ; and until she located in 1874 in Washington, D. C, where she 
was associated for two years with Jliss Marwedel. In 1877 Mrs. Pollock with her daughter 
opened a Training Institute for Mothers and Kindergartners, each conducting a Kinder- 
garten of her own. Mrs. and Miss Pollock spent two months In the summer of 1879 in 
Rulcigh N. C.,and will spend the same time in 1880 in Chapel Ilill, in introducing the Kin- 
dergarten system under the auspices of Professors in the State University. 

Prof. N. T. Allen, founder of the English and Classical School at AVcst Newton, 
Mass., learning from his brother James, who was in Germany in 1859-GO, of the Kinder- 
parten and Madame Marenholtz, wrote back, in ISfiD, authorizing him to engage a suit- 
able Kindergartner fo come over and start an institute after the Frcebel idea in their 
school. Not successful in this application, he extended every facility in his power 
to Mrs. Pollock who opened a Kindergarten in connection with his school, in September, 
1864, which was carried on in the true spirit and methods of Froebel by her until other 
engagements compelled her to relinquish the undertaking. 



II 



CHARITY KINDERGARTENS IX THE UNITED STATES. 



DEVELOPMENT. 



The term Charity Kindergartens requires some explanation. When Miss 
Blow began her work in St. Louis she began it and persevered for two 
or more years on her own means, casting her bread upon the waters. 
Her success the world knows, and she has reaped the reward of seeing 
the public mind in St. Louis so much impressed with the beneficial results 
that Kindergartens form at present a part of the public school system. 

The Charity Kindergartens of Boston and Cambridge, and their vicin- 
ity, are a little different. They pick up the very most neglected children, 
and much parish visiting, as it may be called, is enjoined by Mrs. Shaw 
upon her teachers, and cordially done by them. It would please Mrs. 
Shaw better if they were caUed free Kindergartens, because her sympathy 
for the poor is so genuine that she does not wish to have their feelings 
hurt in any way, but her wish has not been strictly followed because it is 
not quite so descriptive of the thing as is " charity" Kindergartens. Her 
agents are instructed not only to bring neglected children in, but to fur- 
nish them with clothing, when necessary. Indeed there is no outside to 
her great heart. 

The first charity Kindergarten in the United States was that of Miss 
Susan E. Blow, of St. Louis, Mo., who in the winter of 1872-3 went to 
New York city and studied the s^'Stem thoroughly, and in 1873-4 kept a 
Kindergarten of thirty pupils in the Normal school-house, where Superin- 
tendent Harris gave her a room, rent free. The children were between 
three and si.x. In the fall of 1874 some twenty of her pupils, who were 
then seven years of age, went into the primary school and showed the 
value of the Kindergarten training by going through the three years' 
work in one j'car, thus saving two years for the grammar schools./ Miss 
Blow also gratuitously trained twelve ladies for Kindergartners that year. 
The next year, with four of these for assistants, she taught one hundred 
children in her Kindergarten, and there were two Kindergartens taught 
by two of her ladies, each with three of their classmates for assistants. 
Miss Blow continued her training-school for teachers the next year with 
many in the class, and on Saturdays all of them met with the old class for 
a general lesson. The effect of these on the primary schools when the 
Kindergarten children went into them determined the school board to 
institute twelve Kindergartens, and pay as many teachers, and Miss Blow 
took the superintendence of them, all still gratuitously, and carried on her 
Kindergarten, whose pupils became volunteer assistants in the Kinder- 
gartens. Now, in 1880, there are fifty-two Kindergartens in St. Louis, 
whose head teachers are paid $500 out of the school appropriation and 
whose assistants are volunteers from Miss Blow's free training class. 



652 CHARITY KINDERGARTENS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

The next great charity work in this cause was done by Mr. S. H. Hill 
of Florence. Miss Pealjody having given a lecture iu the Cosmean hall of 
that village, and some citizens expressing a desire for the Kindergarten, 
this gentleman offered his own house and paid Mrs. Aldrich to open a 
nursery and had it free to all the children of the village. This was in 
1874-5. The Kindergarten grew and he subsequently paid more Kinder- 
gartners, built two houses — one for the teachers to live in, and one acom- 
modating two hundred children. At present there are nearly one hun- 
dred in actual attendance. With four Kindergartners paid by a fund that 
Mr. Hill has put in trust, some other citizens of Florence contributing, 
and children of all colors and social position are prepared in these Kin- 
dergartens for the public schools. 

In 1S7C Mrs. Quincy A. Shaw had two Kindergartners trained by Miss 
Garland, dividing between them $1,200 and providing rooms, furniture, 
and material for a charity Kindergarten iu Jamaica Plain. Immediately 
afterwards she did the same thing for Brookline, that town providing a 
room, rent free, in the town hall. Soon after followed another in Rox- 
bury in connection with a nursery. This Kindergarten of eighteen pupils 
was under the care of one teacher, paid $600. Then, hearing of Mrs. 
Mann's effort to get up a charity Kindergarten in Cambridge by means of 
a subscription headed by the poet Longfellow, she came to her aid with 
what was wanting. This Kindergarten still goes on, supported by the sub- 
scriptions of Cambridge citizens. The perfect success of all these Kin- 
dergartens in improving the children, together with the collateral gracious 
effects on the poor parents, soon stimulated Mrs. Shaw to establish more 
of them and a nursery in Cambridge, and the same In Cambridgeport, 
until now there are no less than thirty Kindergartens and ten nurseries 
under this munificent patronage, in Jamaica Plain, Brookline, Roxbury, 
Cambridge, Chelsea, Canton, and Boston. In Boston and some other 
places the municipality grants rooms, rent free. Some other ladies help 
about the Kindergarten in the North End missions, and Mrs. James Tol- 
man supports a Kindergarten entirely herself at the south end of Boston. 
There are always twenty-five children in the Kindergartens kept by one 
teacher, with $600 salary, all expenses found besides, and where there 
are from twenty-five to fifty scholars, two teachers with $500 salary each. 
There is some voluntary assistance given sometimes by the pupils of the 
training schools for the sake of the practice they get thereby. 

Mrs. Mann, Mrs. Shaw, Mrs. Tolman, and the other ladies interested 
in the Boston and Cambridge Kindergartens hope to make such an im- 
IDression of their public value on the school authorities as IVIiss Blow made 
by her great work to which she has contributed lieraelf entirely, as well as 
money, so that they may be made the first grade of the public education, 
for of course such munificent benefactors as the lady who spends from 
thirty to forty thousand dollars a year on this charity, are not to be 
readily found — nor can be a permanent resource. 

In New York and Philadelphia charity Kindergartens have been started 
and carried on for two years by a subscription of the members of 
churches, who give a room for the children of their neighborhood, irre- 
spective of denominational name. An eminent success has attended that 



II 



CHARITY KINDERGARTENS IN THE UNITED STATES. PFi^ 

of the Antlion lilemorial Cliurcti of New York, Mrs. Kraus and Miss 
Peabody at different times addressed the ladies of that church, and Mr. 
Newton, the rector, followed it up by distributing freely Kindergarten 
tracts, which any one can procure by sending five cents to E. Steiger, 25 
Park Place, New York. At the end of the year — rather in the Spring of 
1878, he asked his people assembled who would subscribe for a charity 
Kindergarten. Eight hundred dollars was at once subscribed, and half a 
dozen young ladies volunteered to assist a Kindergartner trained by Mrs. 
Kraus Bcelte, to whom $600 was paid. The next year $900 was subscribed 
and some other ladies sent in a substantial dinner for the children. 
"We trust this Kindergarten will prove a model for church work, uni. 
versally. Nothing done for the poor has such gracious effect or gives 
such promise. 

In Philadelphia a parochial Kindergarten is attached to a nursery 
in St. Peter's church, and is taught by Miss Fairchild, a graduate of Miss 
Burritt's, and some attempts have been made beside, in which Miss 
Stevens, Miss Dickey, and Mrs. G. Gourlay have begun good work. It is 
to be regretted that the, church of the Epiphany did not continue Miss 
Sterling in her excellent beginning in their church parlor. Her success 
in winning the children and their parents was so signal that they expressed 
great grief in having to give it up, and if Miss Sterling could have found 
another rent-free room she would have gone on at her own expense, as 
the poor parents proposed to pay enough cents by the week to keep up 
the supply of material. It is necessary in all cases that the patrons of a 
Kindergarten should be fully apprised of the nature of the Kindergarten. 
In this case that requisite preparation was omitted and the whole expense 
fell on the purse of the rector, which could not be perennial. 

In Chicago, Mrs. E. W. Blatchford has established at her own expense 
a Kindergarten under a graduate of Mrs. A. H. Putnam, and which has 
her valuable superintendence. 

In Cincinnati a Charity Kindergarten has been established under the 
auspices of an association of ladies, and the immediate direction of Miss 
Shank of St. Louis, one of Miss Blow's pupils. The plan embraces a 
kitchen in which the older pupils will be taught practical cooking and all 
lighter house- work. 

The most remarkable development of Charity Kindergarten is going on 
in California, under several organizations of workers, all of which aim to 
bring the most neglected children within the elevating and refining influ- 
ences of the best Froebel training. 



THE KINDERGARTEN AND HOMES. 

BY MRS. MARY PEABODY MANN. 



HOMES AS THEY ARE, AND THEIR IMPROVEMENT. 

When we consider what homes and schools are in the present condi- 
tion of the world, it is impossible for the thinking mind not to ask. What 
can be done to improve them? They surely do not produce the effect 
upon society that could be expected from ideal homes and schools, and it 
is these that we would now discuss. 

The institution of home is a divine one, as far as we can judge of divine 
things. The family is eminently God's institution, and nothing should 
be allowed to mar it. It is based upon the most powerful and all-pervad- 
ing sentiments of the human soul, and our quest should be to ascertain by 
reflection all its capabilities for influencing the destiny of man. The 
child is born into the arms of its parents who may well stand appalled before 
the magnitude of the duty it imposes upon them, if they have any adequate 
appreciation of it at all, for we know, alas! that the actual parents of the 
majority of the human race have a very inadequate sense of their duty to 
their children. Children do not come voluntarily into the world, nor do 
parents summon them from the abyss of time anjd space with an intelli- 
gent consciousness that they are new emanations or creations of God's 
[Spirit, to be instructed in their relations to the glorious universe to whose 
study their faculties are adapted. Often unwelcome, the product of pas- 
sion instead of noble and religious sentiment, they are largely left to find 
out through suffering and unaided experience those relations to the uni- 
verse which are the earnest of their immortality. And because the endow- 
ment of nature is often so rich as to overcome all obstacles to the building 
up of that spiritual nature which it is their own part to erect upon that 
basis, many shallow persons idly say that the consequences of neglect and 
obstructions to progi-ess prove that adversity and hindrances are the best 
circumstances under which to form character. Out of conflict and strife 
much truth is elicited, because these stimulate the intellect to action, but 
it is as idle to say that neglect and absence of love are in themselves good 
for the soul, as that the indigestible matter we often eat strengthens the 
powers of digestion. Souls are often starved for the want of proper influ- 
ences, as stomachs are ruined by indigestible food. It is true that even 
the stomach Avill survive much abuse, and we know that souls have an 
immortal principle that will stand by them in some sphere of being if not 
in this — but why lose the highest benefits this life can bestow, the world 
that now is as well as that which is to come? The race has grown in 
spite of all the obstacles it has had to encounter, and the earnest inquiry 
that has engaged the greatest minds in it has resulted at last in the dis- 
covery of a method of improving homes and education within and out- 



KINDERGARTEN AND HOMES. . ^55 

side of tliem. Madame Marenholz-Bulow, who may well be called the 
apostle of Froebel, having devoted thirty years of her life to the promul- 
gation of his system in many lands, has of late issued a little book upon 
the evils of the present time, and she resolves them all into the deficient 
education of women. While women are of inferior education, how can 
homes be what they ought to be and evidently were intended to be? God 
does not do things arbitrarily. An eloquent preacher once said: "God 
takes care of the helpless babe, not by folding it under an angel's win"-, 
but by pillowing it on a mother's breast." God does not speak from the 
skies to teach women to fit themselves to be good mothers, but having 
endowed the human race with faculties adequate to all their needs— and 
who can compass the glory of their possible destiny?— he inspires the 
mother's heart to learn by experience. If it is true that in early times 
men lived hundreds of j'ears, it could have been none too long to learn 
the lessons of this great school of a world. At present we seem to live 
long enough only to catch a glimpse of what is left for us to do. Women 
were once, and in some places are still treated only as chattels, or at least 
merely as the bearers of bodies, and are not expected to educate the souls. 
Even in the most educating modern country (Germany) it was not long 
since considered best for the sons to be taken from the influence of their 
mothers as early as possible. It had not apparently dawned upon them that 
the mothers should be better educated for their office. May we not 
justly attribute to this custom the prevalence of irreligion among distin- 
guished Germans? for if religion is not cherished at the mother's knee, by 
the mother's heart, where will it be likely to be done? The mother 
watches every motion of her nursing babe, and its organic life in her is 
thus far cherished, but when a little older the care becomes troublesome, 
especially if she is worldly, and she calls in the aid of — whom? Does 
she, like queens, appoint the best educated and most unexceptionable 
woman in her sphere to aid her in the holy duty? Should not every 
mother provide that none but good examples shall be set before the 
awakening mind and heart of her little immortal? and consult at every 
turn with assistant educators? And as her child increases in years, does 
she guard it on every side from evil influences? Does she especially 
watch her own words and acts, which have such powerful influence upon 
the child as long as its faith in her is unbroken, the faith that is the 
matrix of faith in God? Does she never break a promise, or present an 
unworthy motive, or use a subterfuge with her child? Did she come to 
her task pi-epared for it? or was she married, or did she become a mother 
without studying the subject? Probably nine-tenths of all the women 
who are married think only of the gratification of their own affections. 
When the relation of mother comes to a conscientious woman, the mater- 
nal sentiment awakes and absorbs almost her every thought, but how 
poorly does she find herself equipped for the new duty! She searches 
herself to know what are her resources, and deplores her deficient educa- 
tion when she finds how limited they are. New, pressing duties of 
many kinds prevent her from educating herself now, and she is obliged 
to depend upon her maternal instincts, whose scope she has never studied. 
These instincts, uneducated, may make her sacrifice every one else to her 



656 KINDERGARTEN AND HOMES. 

child, whicli ste has not the right to do. More children come and she is 
overwhelmed. How frequent is this history! She must now learn wis- 
dom by her mistakes, and her children are the victims of this long-de- 
ferred training! 

In reading the history of Froebel's life and study of man, and his final 
discovery of the true method of education, what woman is not mortified 
to think that it was not made by a woman and a mother? Froebel 
learned it from his observation of tender, noble mothers, who had learned 
wisdom by their costly experience, guided by the maternal instinct which 
makes the good mother obliterate herself for the good of her child. 
Standing a little apart from the duty, and bringing a cultivated, scientific 
mind to the subject, he saw where the difl3culty lay, and why all mothers 
were not equal to their task, and why children were left to suffer uncom- 
prehended, unsympathized with. This tender, womanly nature, from 
which he had suffered so much after losing his own mother, was enlisted 
in the reform of this world-wide evil, and he has shown mothers how to 
remedy it. This sentiment pervades all his works. 

But this is not to be done slumbering. Woman must rise in her might 
and see that all icomen are educated for their vocation. It is not enough 
that a mother here and there studies the system, but every woman 
should be trained to the work, so that children may fall into no evil 
hands. No woman should consider herself educated who does not make 
herself acquainted with a method that is acknowledged by the highest 
thinkers to meet all the requisitions for the education of the little child; 
for the Kindergarten system provides for every want of human nature — 
physical, moral, and intellectual. If all women studied the principles of 
this science, for it is a science, no motherless child would be left to suffer, 
for nothing so draws out the maternal nature in woman as the profound 
study of child-nature. Every good Kindergartner finds the motherly 
element in herself, and by adoption makes every child she deals with her 
own, so that the most difficult cases do not discourage her, or wear out 
her patience, or exhaust her resources. She is sure the right germ is 
there if her skill can find it, and the challenge to the resources she has 
laid by seem to create new ones to meet every contingency. 

HOW IS THIS TRAINING TO BE MADE UNIVERSAL? 

Every public school organization should have appended to it a training 
school, in which all the girls of the school (subject to an examination for 
qualification) can take a course of this study after they have given all the 
time they can command to their general education. The most highly 
cultivated will then take their rank as Kindergarten educators — for a Kin- 
dergarten of practice must accompany such a training school, and the 
charity Kindergartens will afford ample field also — those of inferior 
grade can act as nurses, and every woman will be suitably educated for 
marriage. If marriage is, for any cause, not her lot in life, she will still 
have a vocation that will give her congenial employment in any sphere. 
"When this matter is understood and appreciated, women will come for- 
ward and found such institutions in which all their sex can be educated 
to this work, the rich paying for their own instruction, the poor receiving 



KINDERGARTEN AND HOMES. 657 

it gratis. One noble example of similar action is before us. Others would 
fill up the ranks and do likewise if they knew what the work is. It has 
not yet become general enough to show its effects saliently. When 
it has, the sun is not more certain to rise than that means will be offered 
and the work will be entered upon. 

INPLUENCES OF KINDERQAKTENS ON HOMES. 

It is now the work of those who have had the opportunity to mark the 
beneficent effects of such trained care upon the rising generation, to 
spread the knowledge of it and point out its workings. We have already 
the means of doing this, although the field is yet a small one. Some 
thirty charity kindergartens of the last three years afford the material.* 
They have been carefully watched, not only in the school-rooms but in 
their influence on the families of the children. It is true that these fam- 
ilies are not yet reformed so far as to be publicly conspicuous, but the 
kindergartners and the friends who have aided them and sympathized in 
the work have noted the changes wrought by these little ministers of the 
cause, who have gone home from the little paradises where their minds 
are organized to observe, wills educated to choose the right, and their 
hearts trained to love, and uttered sentiments in their childish prattle 
that have arrested the attention of the members of the families where for 
the first time the children are treated with respect, for when they hear 
profane language they manifest pain, and in the simplicity of taeir moral 
courage they check their very mothers in their rough speech, and show 
courtesy and disinterestedness to brothers and sisters. Their lives have 
been set to music, and the hard-looking and — alas! we must say it — hard- 
drinking parents are arrested by the spectacle and their hearts softened 
by the tender voices that chant the beautiful sentiments that have human- 
ized the children out of their former savage demeauor (for the animal 
development was the first one in their case), and are now to humanize the 
parents who have hitherto met with a blow or a kick any disobedience or 
annoyance from their children. Men stay at home from the grog-shops 
to hear their four-year-old babes sing! and teach the older ones the pretty 
plays that symbolize all sorts of occupations, and hear them describe 
nature, flowers, birds, and the beauty in every thing. Children of the 
neglected class, who are left to find their own amusement, are often noted 
for early sharpness and cunning resource. Natural selfishness leads them 
specially to steal what they want, till they are taught that there is a golden 
rule by which alone justice can be done to all, themselves included. 
Little children that robbed gardens to gratify tlie lust of their eyes — for 
they love beautiful things as well as more favored children do, and per- 
haps better, since they are never surfeited with them — now go through 
the streets, hand in hand, singing songs, in obedience to their teachers' 
recommendation, and are easily distinguished from other children who 
watch their opportunity to pounce upon something displayed in shop 
windows, notably something to eat, which can soon be safely disposed of. 
Nothing is more striking in the way of improvement than these children's 

* The Charity Kindergartens established and sustained by individual beneficence, ia 
Cambridge and Boston. 42 



658 KINDERGARTEN AND HOMES. 

altered behavior to one another, as well as to their elders. Mothers, 
whose naturally tender hearts have been crusted over with the too heavy- 
burdens of unassisted care and never ending recurrence of it, weep when 
they see their children grow in lovely traits, and gradually learn to believe 
that kindness is the best discipline, when they see how much better it 
works than the harsh word and the brutalizing slap. ' ' My mother does 
not slap half as much as she used to before Harry went to the kinder- 
garten," said a young girl, the eldest of nine children, most of whom 
were boys. " She thinks your way is the best." 

When thirty-five mothers saw the orderly, courteous, obedient behavior 
of fifty children who had been under but three months training in two 
kindergartens, and were assembled together at a Christmas festival, in 
which there was not an instance of rudeness or misbehavior of any kind, 
with no msU>le restraints to curb them, some of them ejaculated "I never!" 
" How kind the ladies must be, they love them so! " " How patient the 
ladies must have been!" Others wept and could not speak. Some of 
them had pretty stories to tell of their children's politeness at home where 
they were characterized as "the best behaved people in the family." A 
new idea had entered their minds ; their faces wore a different expression 
from the one with they had first assembled to " hear about kindergarten," 
and were thankful to be relieved of some of the care of their little ones, 
but without an idea of anything but this welcome relief of a few hours of 
the day — evidently incredulous of more ! 

Usually the poorer class of children go into the primary schools reluct- 
antly — they have heard traditions in their short lives of tedious constraints, 
stupid times, ferulings, and school fights, but the children who attend 
kindergartens cry to go and wish to stay all day. Even in aristocratic 
kindergartens this is generally the case, so great with children is the love 
of that species of amusement in which they are themselves the factors 
and producers — in short, in which their faculties are brought into action, 
and the imagination and love of beauty addressed. It is found that very 
badly behaved children are the exception in kindergartens or elsewhere ; 
faults are often merely experiments, mere natural expressions of their 
propensities, and something substituted for these idle experiments that 
occupies the faculties more agreeably, soon disarms them and opens a new 
vista in the universe into which they would fain enter, and whose delights 
obliterate the very memory of their own unaided and aimless endeavors 
after amusement and activity. Those children who are removed from 
the kindergartens to the primary schools often go with not only tears but 
screamings, having exhausted all their little powers to avert the calamity. 
But once transferred, if they have had a decent length of time in the 
kindergarten (it ought to be three years, if pos.sible), their progress is very 
rapid and very satisfactory, for their habits of attention and observation 
make tasks easy to them which to those not so trained are uninteresting 
and apparently hopeless, and therefore do not chain the attention. It is 
impossible to test what the children learn in a kindergarten by any process 
of examination. All children can learn by rote, but there must be faith 
in the process which cultivates the powers and enables them to use their 
faculties intelligently, and to "do to others as they would be done by." 



KINDEKGAR TEN AND HOMES. 659 

The true test is at a later stage, when they are found with their little 
minds fertilized with related facts which they apply to the exigencies of 
life, and are seen to think for themselves, to act in reference to conditions, 
to choose intelligently the good from the evil, to restrain their own pas- 
sions, and to fulfill their little duties. It may be said these are the results 
of life-long exertions, and this is true; but the direction may be given in 
the earliest childhood, and children can learn in company with each other 
the duties of society. They are more influenced by each other as they 
grow older than by adults, but babydom turns to the mother or her sub- 
stitute for guidance and protection, and at that age has an organic life in 
her which makes it all important what she is. To make herself what she 
should be is then her first duty. To those who study this new education, 
life is no longer a mystery. It is a frequent exclamation of its students: 
"I know now what I was made for!" Can there be a more eloquent 
commentary upon what the study is, when such an exclamation is heard 
from a young woman just entering life with all its hopes and enchant- 
ments and possibilities teeming in her imagination? Watch them after- 
ward as they move round the little assemblies they take charge of, full of 
sympathy — I mean an understanding sympathy, not a sentimental passion 
for the little beings they are guiding and loving. They do indeed fill 
one's idea of ministering angels, especially when the children are gleaned 
from streets and hovels and neglected homes. One little boy, not four 
years old, came into a kindergarten drunk. It was learned from him, 
subsequently, that when father got his money the Saturday before, he 
bought whiskey, and all the children shared it! Instead of being punished 
for the naughtiness it had put into him, his ministering angel had inves- 
tigated the case and discovered the secret of it. It will be her mission 
now to teach him to resist the temptation, and who knows but what he 
will save his parents yet? One bright little fellow in the same kinder- 
garten, who had come in just before the summer vacation, in such a 
condition of neglect that it required some resolution to take hold of him, 
but who was now washed, combed, and prettily dressed, and had quite 
an aristocratic air by the poise of his fine head and the animated expres- 
sion of his handsome face, amused himself with kicking all his little 
neighbors — not brutally, but "for fun." His ancles were tied firmly 
together till the end of the session, and when the others moved, one of 
the teachers drew him into her lap in a corner and had a long talk with 
him, as if he was her own dear, erring child, instead of somebody else's 
naughty boy, and when she put him down after this conference, his face 
was irradiated, and he was allowed to mingle with the rest as if all the 
lightning had been drawn from his cloud. He had a twin brother whom 
one could hardly distinguish from him, who had explained to me his 
condition as soon as I entered— " You see, he kicks" — and he was evi- 
dently of a different quality of character, though looking so much like 
the little kicker. He watched his discipline with great interest. Some- 
times wonderful transformations take place at once, as if the mere sub- 
stitution of the right motive for a wrong one, or for no motive at all, was 
all that was needed — but again, there are difficult cases that are only con- 
quered by patient perseverance. Violence is not used; not only because 



660 KINDERGARTEN AND HOMES. 

that is not the heavenly way, but because that was probably the cause of 
the whole difficulty, or if it was not personal violence, it was injudicious 
and reckless severity of judgment, at which the human soul revolts and 
stands on its own defence. A child will hang his head with shame at an 
astonished expression of countenance, especially from one he loves, who 
would perhaps resist opposition to the last extremity. If the way can 
only be found to remand him to the monitor within, and lead him to con- 
demn himself, even silently, the work is well begun if not done. 

The kindergartners should be looked upon as a holy order, as true 
sisters of charity, and should have every encouragement and furtherance 
that society can give, for their task is a hard one. When all women are 
educated in the science of child-culture, there will be no want of sympa- 
thj^ for them, for each one will feel it to be her vocation also, although 
all may not give their lives to it with the same devotion as those who 
make it their prime calling. The office of teacher has often been in past 
times looked upon as that only of an upper servant in a family or com- 
munity. It is notably in places of the highest general culture that they 
take their true position. They rank in such communities with the clergj'-- 
men, for they also have the care of souls, and in proportion to their en- 
lightenment take rank with the philosopher, seeker of wisdom. The vis- 
itation desirable to be connected with the kindergartens is a most valua- 
ble adjunct. In this way families are to be reached, and the love of their 
children, shown and evidently felt by their teachers, will win its way to 
otherwise cold and suspicious hearts of poor mothers. Nothing so bridges 
over the abyss between the rich and the poor as these kindergartens. 
When the poor mother sees her child treated with respect, all her opposi- 
tion vanishes, and in this country at least she can look forward to her 
children's occupying any position of which they will prove worthy. And 
if the early culture of the children morally and physically will help to 
elevate the families they belong to, there will not be that painful discrep- 
ancy between the uneducated parents and the educated children. So 
large a proportion of the foreign poor of our cities are wanting in any 
education whatever, that half the value of the early training of the chil- 
dren is lost, unless the minds of the parents are also reached. The most 
Invaluable class of visitors of the poor therefore is the kindergartners, for 
with their passport into the families who require charity of all kinds, spir- 
itual as well as material, they have an opportunity never offered before. 
It is a good gauge of the fitness of the kindergartner for her blessed task 
if she is found to see the importance of this part of her work. Let the 
idle, wealthy women who wish they had something useful to do, visit 
these divine institutions of modern benevolence, and they will find ample 
occupation in assisting in their work. Many helps can come from out- 
side. Beautiful pictures are invaluable aids in the culture of children — 
not pictures of Johnny, in Mother Goose, tripping up his grandmother, 
or tying rags to an old man's coat, or Taffy stealing the pig. Such demor- 
alizers as these should have the reprobation of society, but pictures illus- 
trating moral beauty, such as those that adorn Froebel's Mother and Cosset 
song« and De Gerando's illustrated work of the prizes given by the French 
Academy for noble deeds of humanity — as well as pictures of nature, ani- 



KINDERGARTEN AND HOMES. 661 

mals, sports, etc., of which the world is now full. A little child will see 
much in a picture that will escape an adult, and nothing will bring him 
forward so fast in expressing himself intelligently as the talk over beauti- 
ful pictures. The benevolent who befriend these kindergartens have after 
all limited means, both of multiplying the kindergartens and furnishing 
them with all the appliances they need. If the inhabitants of each ward 
could supply good places for kindergartens, or even one with ample space 
and in a Cjuiet neighborhood, which are conditions absolutely necessary to 
their good success, it would be far better than to have them in public 
school-buildings in noisy streets. A commission of ladies formed for the 
purpose, as a regular board of visitors, would be an invaluable help to the 
kindergartens, and thus women could begin at once to assist in this best 
of chcirities. It is often sympathy rather than money that is needed for 
God's work in the world. Every one can emulate his moral government 
of it. One lady now furnishes food to one of the kindergartens for 
lunches for those children whose parents are too poor to furnish them, or 
if not actually, too poor, too intemperate or too wicked, and whose chil- 
dren are, as it were, picked out of the street. Some of these ygyj little 
waifs are among the brightest and most attractive when washed, combed, 
and dressed decently, and show an evident self-respect, which is a great 
change from the cowed, frightened, brutal condition in which they 
entered what to them must seem to be the gates of heaven. 

The kindergartners are the educators to be consulted by mothers rather 
than wise men who exercise their brains about school curriculums and 
think very little in that connection of " love your neighbor,'' and " do to 
others as you would have them do to you." The kindergartners make 
the philosophy of the human mind their study when they have devoted 
themselves to child-culture, and they learn from Froebel's exposition of 
his principles why the artistic faculties and love of doing are to be trained 
joyfully before abstract ideas are offered them and before they are taught 
anything else. In one sense we understand nothing, in childhood, or 
ever. We can learn by observation that the germ of the seed throws out 
a root and a plumule, and that the pea, for example, throws out leaves 
and goes on growing until it blossoms and bears a pod containing other 
seeds like the one we planted; for every instant of this process can be 
watched for by placing the peas in a glass tumbler in the midst of wet 
cotton, every movement from the beginning can be seen, but the wisest 
of us do not understand the forces of nature that make it grow. This is 
the time when the intelligent child asks why and how, and the proper 
answer to the question here is, "No one knows tchy or 7ioio but God." 
This points out the unseen agency of the Creator, and will make him 
better understand the voice of God in his own breast. The faith of child- 
hood will germinate belief, and when a child has watched the growth of 
a plant, it comprehends what is meant when it is told that its goodness 
can grow if it is cherished. We do not have to supply the consciousness 
that this analogy is true. God has planted that in the human soul, ready 
to be developed at the right moment, but let us not forestall the time when 
it can be recognized. Let the cultivated senses form a basis for the thought, 
which will then need no explanation in words. Nature is teeming with 



602 KINDERGARTEN AND HOMES. 

similar analogies on every side. A cultivated mind (and only sucli should 
guide the development of children) sees a thousand illustrations of ideas 
that she can convey to them. I question if a well-trained kindergartner 
will ever have recourse to nonsense verses to amuse children. Brilliant 
verses, striking images, startling contrasts are all in order, but no words 
should be given them that have not a meaning. It is an insult to their 
understandings and often a cause of much after perversion of mind and 
confusion of ideas. Many confessions of great men, who remember 
something that puzzled their minds in childhood, intellectually and 
morally, testify to this. 

MR. combe's early CHILDHOOD. 

Idle and unconsidered words often make a deep impression upon chil- 
dren and lead to important consequences. In the Introduction to Mr. 
George Combe's little work upon the "Relation between Science and 
Religion," he recounts such an instance.* On the occasion of his dividing 
a bit of sugar-candy with his brothers and sisters (he was six years old) 
the nursery maid said to him, " That's a good boy — God w!ll reward you 
for this. " He says, ' ' These words were uttered by her as a mere form of 
pious speech, proper to be addressed to a child ; but they conveyed to my 
mind an idea; they suggested intelligently and practically, for the first 
time, the conception of a Divine reward for a kind action; and I instantly 
put the question to her: "How will God reward me?" "He will send 
you everything that is good." "What do you mean by good — will he 
send me more sugar-candy? " " Yes — certainly he will if you are a good 
boy." "Will he make this piece of sugar-candy grow bigger?" "Yes 
— God always rewards those who are kind-hearted. " 

Mr. Combe was a logical reasoner from childhood. If the nurserj-- 
maid had said, " God has made you so that you will always be happier 
for doing a good action," his experience would have verified the remark. 
and the consequences might have been beneficent to his character; but 
her words were destined to work in another way, long puzzling to his 
understanding. "I could not rest contented with words," he goes on to 
say, " but at once proceeded to the verification of the assurance by experi- 
ment and observation. I forthwith examined minutely all the edges of 
the remaining portion of sugar-candy, took an account of its dimensions, 
and then, wrapping it carefully in paper, put it into a drawer, and waited 
with anxiety for its increase. I left it in the drawer all night, and next 
morning examined it with eager curiosity. I could discover no trace of 
its alteration in its size, either of increase or decrease. I was greatly dis- 
appointed; my faith in the reward of virtue by the Ruler of the world 
received its first shock, and I feared that God did not govern the world in 
the manner which the nursery maid represented. 

' ' Several years afterwards I read in the Grammatical Exercises, an early 
class-book then used in the High School of Edinburgh, these words: 
' Deus giLbernat mundum,' God governs the world. ' Mundus gubernatur 
a Beo,' the world is governed by God. These sentences were introduced 

* This essay of Mr. Combe's upon the Relation between Science and Religion is a booli 
that ought to be in every Eindergarten library. 



KINDERGARTEN AND HOMES. 



663 



into the book as exercises in Latin grammar, and our teacher, the late 
Mr. Lulce Fraser, dealt with them merely as such, without entering into 
any consideration of the ideas embodied in them. This must have 
occurred in the year 1798, when I was ten years of age, and the words 
made an indelible impression, and continued for years and years to haunt 
my imagination. As a child I assumed the fact itself to be an indubitable 
truth, but felt a restless curiosity to discover how God exercises his juris- 
diction." 

The process that went on in his mind through long years of study is so 
minutely described that it is too long to be extracted here, but every word 
of it is of import. History disappointed him, because the great rulers of 
the world did not govern justly or appear to recognize God's action. At 
home, his parents administered their affairs pretty well, but with such 
evident imperfection that "it was impossible to trace God's superintend- 
ence or direction in their administration. " Napoleon Bonaparte in France, 
George III, Mr. Pitt, and Mr. Melville, did no better. When he studied 
the literature, mythology, and history of Greece and Rome, he was 
equally disappointed. Most rulers and other people seemed to acknowl- 
edge in words that God governed the world, " but the belief seemed to be 
like a rope of sand in binding their consciences." 

In studying the Old and New Testament, and the orthodox catechisms, 
he found more direct statements of God's moral government, but never 
could apply the examples to practical purposes. The pious frauds of the 
Catholic priesthood, and also of Protestant divines, formed farther stum- 
bling blocks, and in his theological studies he was taught that God often 
leaves the wicked to run the course of their sins in this world without pun- 
ishing them, reserving His retribution for the Day of Judgment. This 
seemed to imply " that God does not govern the world in any intelligible 
or practical sense, but merely takes notes of men's actions, and com- 
mences his actual and efficient government only after the resurrection 
from the dead." Such was the influence of his Calvinistic education, such 
the terrors inspired by it, that he wished himself an inferior animal without 
a soul. He used to climb high up on the rocks of Edinburgh Castle, 
which overhung his father's house, and gaze with intense interest on the 
evening star, and longed to see into its internal economy, with the thought 
that if he could but discover that summer and winter, heat and cold, life 
and death prevailed there as here, he should be happy, for then he could 
believe that this world was not cursed, but that it and the planet were 
both such as God intended them to be. His distress was aggravated by 
finding such doubts and difficulties described in the catechism as "pun- 
ishments of sin," and ascribed to "blindness of mind, a reprobate sense, 
and strong delusions. " He had never heard the truth of the catechism 
questioned, and it was not till a later period that he became convinced 
that the feelings he mentioned arose from the intuitive revulsion of the 
moral, religious, and intellectual faculties with which he had been en- 
dowed, against the dogmas of Calvin. When he studied the laws of the 
solar system and perceived the harmonies and adaptation of the revolu- 
tions of the planets, when new light broke in upon his mind from the 
pursuit of astronomy and physiology, from chemistry, and other sciences. 



664 KINDERGARTEN AND HOMES. 

all wMcli proclaimed the all-pervading God, he still asked how He gov- 
erned the moral world, and it was not till Gall's discovery of the functions 
of the brain, that he was led step by step to understand God's connection 
with the soul of man. 

Doubtless if he had been left to think for himself he would have arrived 
early and happily to a sense of the same, and when we think of the stereo- 
typed utterances upon the subject of our relations to our Heavenly 
Father, which the little child believes as soon as he is intelligently told of it, 
we realize how immense is the importance of a cultivated mind to the edu- 
cator of childhood. A cultivated mind does not mean a mind and memory 
crammed with facts and book knowledge, but the trained power of think- 
ing, founded on the analogies of nature. "Women, even more than men, 
are dependent upon others for their thinking, and it is because their 
minds are not scientifically trained to anything. The religious aspects of 
science can be inculcated upon the youngest children, and those minds 
that think no religious impressions can be made upon them can never 
have lived with children in the sense in which Froebel uses the words. 
No limit need be put to the acquisitions and learning of women, but what 
they are to do for society is first to make themselves acquainted with tLe 
nature of the new-born soul, and then to see to it that all other women 
share the knowledge, for the conscientious soul cannot rest contented till 
it shares with others all the good it enjoys, especially of a moral and 
intellectual nature. The human race is a solidarity, and never can 
advance much as a race till enlightenment is eciualized as far as there is 
capacity to receive it. 

The above is a strong case, but Dr. Channing relates one himself some- 
what similar, and others recur to mind. Doubtless innumerable instances 
of perversion of mind occur that are never remedied by original thinking. 
It seems strange even that Mr. Combe did not throw it off earlier. It 
shows the power of accepted dogmas over a conscientious spirit, and 
shows also how unprincipled it is to exert such power. No disputed 
opinion should ever be uttered as a fact, and this idea of justice and truth 
should rule in education from the very beginning. A reasoning child 
should not be made to do anything solely from obedience to any indi- 
vidual, even its mother, except in some case of personal danger to itself 
or others. The motive inculcated should be a far higher one, or we 
should wait and trust the human soul meanwhile. We can do this if we 
believe the human soul is made aright by its Creator — that is, that it has 
recuperative power, and we should be satisfied with removing obstacles 
to its free action. This is what Froebel meant by telling us to study the 
child and never to force it. Arrest it in the wroiig course, so far as to 
enable it to start afresh with a new idea for its guide, but respect the dig- 
nity of human nature from the first. We shall then have noble children 
and not puppets. 



KINDERGARTEN WORK IN CALIFORNIA. 



MISS EMMA MARWEDEL.* 

Since its introduction into this State, about four years ago, the progress 
of kindergarteniug has been stead}^ though by no means as rapid as its 
advocates desire. The advance of Free Kindergarten lias, perhaps, been 
more real than apparent. In 1876 Miss Emma Marwedel came to this State 
from Washington, D. C, whence she was called by the Froobel Union, of 
which she is a member. Her success as a trainer in the National Capital 
was regarded as a certain harbinger of a brilliant career here. Her first 
year's experience, however, fell far short of expectations. Settling in 
Los Angeles, she opened a Kindergarten Normal Class, but secured only 
three pupils — Jliss Katharine D. Smith, Miss Mary Hoyt, and Miss Nettie 
Stewart. These j'oung ladies, all of whom were remarkably endowed by 
nature for the calling they had elected, graduated with high honors in the 
following j'ear. Their proficiency in details and thorough knowledge of 
Frocbel's philosophy as an educational system were unusually marked, 
and awakened great expectations regarding their future as kindergartners. 
Subsequent events have demonstrated that the surmises of enthusiastic 
friends of the system and the graduates were far from chimerical. Upon 
graduating. Miss Katharine D. Smith returned to her home in Santa 
Barbara, where she taught over a year, and until she received a call from 
the Public Kindergarten Society of San Francisco in 1878. Her success 
in this institution has been the admiration of the many who have visited it. 
Miss Mary Hoyt remained in Los Angeles, where she is meeting with con- 
siderable success. Miss Nettie Stewart opened a kindergarten in Los 
AnG;eles, which she conducted with flattering success until she received a 
position in the Deaf and Dumb Asylum at Berkeley, where she has charge 
of the primary department. 

Shortly after the graduation of her first class in Los Angeles, Miss 
Marwedel was called to Oakland, where she remained about a j'car and 
until last August, when she removed to Berkeley. Among the young 
ladies who graduated with her in Oakland w^ere Miss Elizabeth Reed, Miss 
May Benton, Miss Mary Conness, Miss Van Den Bergh, and Miss Allen. 
This is the Miss Lizzie Reed who did so much to build up the Jackson 
street Kindergarten on its organization by Mrs. Sarah B. Cooper. Miss 
Conness is connected with Mrs. West's Seminary, where she has charge 
of the kindergarten and primary department. Miss Van Den Bergh is 
engaged in Miss Colgate Baker's Seminary, and Miss Allen has a private 
kindergarten in Oakland. Miss Marwedel has since removed to this city. 
Miss May Kiltridge is engaged in the Jackson street Kindergarten as 
Principal, vice Miss Lizzie Reed, resigned. Miss Lizzie Muther is now 
in charge of the free kindergarten under the management of the Young 

* From the San Francisco Herald, July, 1880. 



666 KINDEEGARTEN WORK IN CALIFORNIA. 

Women's Christian Association, wliicli has been re-organized on the 
Frojbel system. She also has had the advantages of a lengthj^ experience 
in the Silver street Kindergarten. Miss Fanny Woodbridge is tirst assist- 
ant in the Silver street Kindergarten, and Miss Annie Stovall is first 
assistant in the Jackson street Kindergarten school. 

Young Women's Chridian Association. 

On the 81 h of last April a grand dramatic and social event occurred 
which resulted in giving to the Silver street and Jackson street kindergar- 
tens nearly four hundred dollars each. Such large returns from but one 
entertainment are accounted for by the fact that there were no expenses 
attached to it worth mentioning, as those interested in it vied with one 
another in the liberality of their contributions. Encouraged by this suc- 
cess, and aware that the Young Women's Christian Association had 
thoughts of abandoning its infant school, the committee in charge volun- 
teered to repeat the comedies for the benefit of a new kindergarten to be 
conducted by the Association, instead of the one heretofore under its care. 
The proffered aid was gratefully accepted, the entertainment repeated, 
and between flOO and $200 realized. With this fund the Association has 
opened a free kindergarten on Minna street between First and Second, 
with new benches, tables, (gifts,) material for occupations, etc., required 
in a thorough prosecution of this incomparable system of mental, moral, 
and physical culture. Miss Lizzie Muther, the Principal, says that she 
finds the children very old in their ways ; that they do not take to the 
games in the manner customary among children. Members of the Asso- 
ciation also frequently lend their assistance. It will be readily seen that 
although $100 is of great assistance to an institution of this kind, it serves 
only to liquidate present demands, while current expenses accumulate 
with clock-work regularity and must be met. For this reason the com- 
mittee express a sincere hope that their friends and a generous public will 
sustain them with liberal and correspondingly regular contributions. The 
Kindergarten Committee are: Mrs. J. J. Bowen, Mrs. D. Van Denbur^h, 
Mrs. C. R. Story, Mrs. Fisher Ames, Mrs. G. P. Thurston, and Miss Atkin- 
son. The volunteer teachers are Miss Carrie Story, Mrs. A. E. Stetson, 
Miss Florence FoUansbee, Miss Kate McLane, Miss Kate R. Stone, Miss 
Mary Bates, Miss McLane, Miss Sophie McLane. 
Little Sisters Kindergarten. 

Last November the ladies of the Little Sisters' Infant Shelter at 513 
Minna street, founded a kindergarten in connection with their establish- 
ment, which is in a flourishing condition, having thirty scholars, who are 
under the direction of Miss Fannie Temple. Since the introduction of 
the kindergarten there has been an increase in the number of children 
admitted to the Shelter. 

The Ladies' Protection and Relief Society, which is a similar institu. 
'lion, is considering the expediency of establishing a kindergarten in 
connection with their school. The obstacle in the way of a favorable 
decision is purely one of dollars and cents. With funds forthcoming 
they would launch out at once. Good news is, however, anxiously 
awaited from the committee that will report at the next regular meeting 
to be held this month. 



KINDERGARTEN WORK IN CALIFORNIA. 667 

Shipley Street Kindergarten. 
Recently several benevolent ladies interested in kindergartens opened a 
new school at 146 Shipley street, near Sixth, with Mrs. Lloyd, an experi- 
enced kindergartuer, as Principal. The opening took place under most 
favorable auspices, and " Kindcigarten No. 4," as it is called, promises to 
be the peer of any in the city. There is a daily attendance of about lifty 
bright-faced, intelligent children. 

Jackson Street Kindergarten. 

Among the most indefatigable workers in behalf of free kindergarten 
is Mrs. Sarah B. Cooper. Since her first visit to the Silver street Kinder- 
garten she has worked by day and planned by night, till now she has the 
gratification of seeing a first-class kindergarten on Jackson street, built 
by her own labor and protected by her own motherly love. In this she 
has been ablj'^ assisted by the members of her Bible-class in Calvary 
Church, many of whom take turns in assisting Miss Mary Kittridge, the 
principal, who, by the way, is a member, as is also Miss Kate Smith of 
the Silver street, and Miss Lizzie Muther of the Young Women's Chris- 
tian Association Kindergarten. 

Prominent citizens have come forward and generously contributed five 
dollars per month toward the support of her kindergarten, and many 
others give two or three dollars per month, according to their means 
or inclination. "Well does this good Christian M'oman deserve such sup- 
port and encouragement in her philanthropic labors, for never was any 
one more devoted than she to ameliorate the condition of the ignorant, 
poor, and needy. 

The following are the officers of the Jackson street Kindergarten : Mrs. 
Edward Rix, President; Miss Hattie Cooper and Miss Nellie Van Winkle, 
Vice-Presidents; Miss Jennie Fitch, Treasurer; Miss Hattie Horn, Sec. 

Last February, Mrs. Cooper founded a receiving class, assisted by John 
Swett, Principal of the Girls' High School, who secured benches, black- 
boards, desks, chairs, stove, etc., by requisition upon the School Dei)art- 
ment. He also sent Normal Class pupils to teach, thus accomplishing a 
dual benefit — the children's gratuitous instruction and the teacher's prac- 
tical application of theories of education. 

Silver street Kindergarten. 
The history of the Silver street Kindergarten alone would make a vol- 
ume in itself, so many interesting incidents occur there daily. There is 
not a phase of human nature the Principal has not seen during the two 
years she has been in charge. In visiting families, she has been called 
upon to perform the duties of spiritual counselor, physician, mother, 
nurse, provider, benefactor, and general guardian ; with what success may 
be learned from scores of parents in the neighborhood who have been 
raised from squalor, drunkenness, and crime to cleanliness, sobriety, and 
virtue, and who now speak in terms of enthusiastic and unqualified 
praise, tinged with reverential awe, of "Miss Kate." The Silver street 
Kindergarten originated as follows: In July, 1878, Professor Felix Adler, 
the New York philanthrophist, came to San Francisco and delivered a 
series of lectures on various topics, in which frequent allusion was made 



638 KIXDEKGARTEN WORK IN CALIFORNIA. 

to the astouisliing beneficial results, morally, intellectually, and physi- 
cally, of free kindergartens. On one occasion he said: "If we apply 
the spirit of preventive charity to our age, we must face the evil of pau- 
perism, the root of which lies in a lack of education of the children. In 
the United States the social question is not yet acute, as it is in Europe, 
and we are called upon to prevent it from becoming a menace to our 
republican institutions by building up a class of voters — inaugurating the 
Kindergarten system of education, and so save the rising generation from 
destruction." In private he sought out Solomon Heydenfeldt, S. Nick- 
lesburg. Dr. J. Hirschfelder, and other friends, all of whom he so thor- 
oughly convinced that kindergarten was unapproachable as a moral, 
benevolent, and educational agency, that they agreed to organize a Kin- 
dergarten Society, if meeting with public support and encouragement. 
Accordingly, they set out to secure subscribers, and in one day they 
obtained one hundred. This was considered sufficient to form a nucleus, 
and a card bearing the following call was mailed to each: 

Dear Sir: A meeting for organization of the Public Kindergarten 
Society of San Francisco will be held Tuesday evening, July 23cT, at 9 
o'clock p. M., in the Baldwin Hotel parlors. The assistance and counte- 
nance of your presence at this first and most important meeting is espe- 
cially and earnestly requested. For the Committee, 

Felix Adler. 

Pursuant to this call a meeting was held that evening. The attendance 
was very large, and Mr. Heydenfeldt was elected Chairman, and Dr. J. 
Hirschfelder Secretary. The proceedings were characterized by great 
enthusiasm and imanimity. At another meeting held two days subse- 
quent, the "Public Kindergarten Society of San Francisco " was organized 
by the election of the following officers: S. Heydenfeldt, President; S. 
Nicklesburg, Vice-President; Dr. Jos. Hirschfelder, Secretary; Julius 
Jacobs, Treasurer. Board of Directors — Rev. Horatio Stebbins, John 
Swett, Frederick Roeding, Mrs. L. Gottig, Mrs. H. Behrendt, Mrs. H. 
Lessing, Miss E. Marwedel. 

So faithfully and well have they discharged their duties that they have 
been unanimously re-elected every term, and now hold the same positions. 
The Directors were Schueneman-Pott, Mrs. H. Behrendt, Mrs. L. Gottig, 
afterwards increased by the addition of Mrs. H. Lessing and Miss JMar- 
wedel. In June, 1870, another addition was made to the Board, includ- 
ding Rev Dr. Stebbins, John Swett, Professor Hilgard, Dr. Fisk, Fred. 
Roeding. The directors now stand: Rev. Dr. Stebbins, John Swett, Dr. 
Fisk, Professor Hilgard, Fred. Roeding, Mrs. L. Gottig, Mrs. H. Behr- 
endt, Mrs. H. Lessing, and Miss E. Marwedel. 

A Teacher's Trials and Troubles. 

On the recommendation of Miss E. Marwedel, Miss Kate Smith, who was 
then in Santa Barbara, was selected as teacher. Miss Smith experienced 
great difficulty at first in getting mothers to understand the nature and 
object of the new school, but succeeded in a remarkably short time. On 
the opening day, which was the first Monday in September, she had 
eight pupils, and before the week was out she had over fifty applicants 
and a full school. The regular attendance now is about forty. The roll 
numbers fifty. There arc several hundred applicants. Many of the 



KINDERGARTEN WORK IN CALIFOENIA. 60 9 

children being street Arabs of the wildest type, the prosecution of her 
multifarious duties were fraught with incalculable vexation and hardships 
during the opening days. On the first afternoon there were several free 
fights, resulting in scratched and bleeding noses and faces. During a 
momentary, and ominous silence on the second day that foreboded little 
good, the electrifying clang of the fire-lnjll brought every youngster to his 
or her feet, and pell-mell they rushed in an eager go as-you-please contest 
for the scene of the conflagration near by. Miss Smith's warning voice 
w^as unheard or unheeded. She called after them in vain, with hands 
convulsively clasped, great tear drops dewing her eye-lashes, and her 
countenance wearing a most woe-be-gone expression. She sank upon a 
settee in despair, deploring from the bottom of her heart that she ever left 
her peaceful home and school in Santa Barbara. But the little scape- 
graces all returned and day by day they were gradually weaned from 
their unruly conduct and taught to find pleasure in obedience, and the 
musicians of " Sunny Italy" may grind their most heart and ear-piercing 
strains of unrecognizable operas under the very windows of the school- 
house without disturbing Miss Smith's equanimity or mental serenity, for 
not a child will turn its head in that direction. The transformation which 
takes place in some children is truly marvelous, a fact strikingly illustra- 
ted in a most cruel and selfish overgrown boy, about four years old, who 
was among the first admitted. Both his parents were drunkards, and 
made a precarious livelihood by retailing liquor. The youth had been 
raised in the full enjoyment of the concentrated essence of malicious 
mischief. He had been given up as intractable at home, and so was sent 
to the Kindergarten, out of the way. Here his worst passions found a 
wide field of activity. He proved domineering and cruel to his childish 
associates, whom he viciously attacked on the slightest provocation. 
Self-willed and rebellious, he would violate every injunction of his 
teacher, whom lie bit, scratched, kicked, and cursed from pure ugliness — 
often anticipating and violating her wishes with aggravating delight. 
From his advent he was a terror in the school-room, and was given a wide 
berth. Within si.x months he was remolded into an exemplary child, 
and became a favorite with all. His less robust companions looked up to 
him for encouragement and assistance, and he was ever ready to lend a 
helping hand. He grew to fairly worship his teacher, whose hands and 
clothing he would caress with childish expressions of spontaneous en- 
dearment, and found perfect happiness in performing for her any little 
favors she might ask. All his apples, oranges, sweets, cake, and flowers 
were brought to her, and he would refuse the use of any till she accepted 
a portion. He "graduated" last Christmas, and now stands at the head 
of his class in the primary school. This may be said of nearly every 
child who has gone from the Kindergarten into the public schools. 

One difliculty and source of great annoyance to Miss Smith was that of 
striving to clean the children and keep them so. If every child required 
one or two daily washings at her hands, she might as well change the 
estiablishment into a bath-house, and devote her energies to ablution. 
Miss Smith wracked her brain for a remedy. She was well aware that to 
go and tell a mother that her offspring was too dirty to come to school. 



670 KINDERGARTEN WORK IN CALIFORNIA. 

would result in an open breach of friendship, if not of the peace. The 
plan she adopted, and which worked to perfection, was to see the mother 
and make a friend of her — listen to all her woes, secrets, and gossip, mean- 
while, little by little work upon her self-respect and better nature till ulti- 
mately, not only the child but the whole family were transformed from 
mire-wallowers to paragons of cleanliness. After two years' unremilling 
strife, toil, and trouble. Miss Smith has the rare satisfaction of seeing 
grand results attend her efforts, and now she has gone East on three 
months' leave of absence to compare notes with leading minds in the 
work there. Miss Smith has been materially assisted by the young ladies 
of the High School Normal class, two or three of ■whom are in daily 
attendance in her Kindergarten. 

Among the generous-hearted supporters of this institution are Wm. M. 
Lent, who was the first to avail himself of the privilege of becoming a 
life member of the Society by payment of $100. His daugliter, Miss 
Fannie, also became a life-member nearly a year ago. Hundreds of ladies 
and gentlemen who have visited the Kindergarten and examined its 
method of operation and results, have attested their unqualified belief in 
the system, and left substantial evidence of the fact in the hands of Dr, 
Hirsehfelder, the Secretarj^. ]Mrs. R. Johnson, the almoner of the late 
Michael Reese, donated the institution $500 last December, and $400 more 
was realized from the dramatic benefit entertainment already alluded to; 
yet it requires a large amount of money to continue the successful prose- 
cution of the work, and contributions are always welcome. 

KINDERGARTEN WORKERS. 

Solomon Heydenfeldt, the President, is an earnest advocate of kinder- 
garten, and has a proposition in mind to lay before the pastors of the 
various churches with a view to getting them interested in the work 
in their respective Siuulay-schools. He claims that at present only the 
very poor and very rich may derive benefit from kindergartering, while 
the great middle class is excluded. He thinks tluit by a very little effort a 
kindergarten could be opened in connection with every church and con- 
ducted at a trifling expense, till such times as provision can be made for 
the accommodation of all in the School Department. 

Since his identification with the public Kindergarten Society, Rev. Dr. 
Stebbins has been a most zealous and active member. To his efforts is 
largel^r due the favorable action recently taken by the Board of Educa- 
tion, which seems disposed to do what lies in its power towards engrafting 
the kindergarten system on to that of the public schools. Dr. Stebbins, 
with Prof. Swett, Dr. Fisk, and Professor Hiigard were appointed by the 
society a committee to confer with the board upon this subject. The 
result of the conference was that a special meeting was held in the Board 
of Supervisors' Chambers, new City Hall, on February 27th, for the pur- 
pose of hearing the views of the Committee and their friends. The 
attendance was one of the largest ever seen there, and included scholars of 
every profession, e(lu(;ators, philanthropists, and business men. Stirring 
addresses were made by Dr. Stebbins, Judge Heydenfeldt, Mrs. Sarah B. 
Cooper, Miss Kate D. Smith, Prof. Swett, John W. Taylor, A. McF. 
Davis, and others, all of whom testified to the transcendent merits of kin- 



KINDERGARTEN WORK IN CALIFORNIA. 671 

dergai'ten over all other kuown systems of juvenile training, and strongly 
urged its adoption by the board. The benevolent side of the question, 
which is one of its strongest, was not advanced, but only the educational 
pure and simple. 

Kindergartens in the Public School System. 

The meeting resulted in the appointment of Rev. Dr. Stebbins, School 
Director Kimball, and School Superintendent Taylor, as a committee to 
investigate the system of kindergarten instruction, to ascertain what has 
been its fruits in those portions of the world where it has been generally 
adopted; whether it is advisable to adopt it in connection with the public- 
school system of this State, etc. The subsequent illness of Dr. Stebbins, 
chairman of the committee, prevented it from jjerforming its duties for a 
time, but on his recovery the matter was pushed energetically forward to 
a happy consummation, for on May 24th, the committee reported in favor 
of establishing kindergartens, recommending the Jackson street one to be 
first thus recognized and adopted. 

The board adopted the report, and the Freeholders' Charter contains a 
provision authorizing the incorporation of kindergartens in the public 
school system. 

Who sluill become a Kindergartnerin? 

Miss Marwedel answers this question in the opening address to her 
Normal Class of 1874^5 as follows : 
Only those who — 

1. Are able to depend on a healthy, graceful body ; a perfectly bal- 
anced, serene temper ; a good voice; a lively, sympathetic countenance ; 
and a loving heart for children. 

2. Those who have already not only a good foundation of general 
knowledge, but who themselves are interested in all questions about 
causes and effects ; able to catch at once the ideas of the child, and to 
illustrate them in such a manner that they shall instruct and interest the 
child, sufficiently to make its otcn original representation according to 
Froebel's laws: dictating to develop the child's own knowledge, leading 
it to observe and compare for itself, from the general to the special, from 
the concrete to the abstract, always in direct connection with what is at 
hand, to make an impression upon the child's senses. 

3. Those who have practical ability to learn, and artistic talent to 
execute Froebel's occupations, and are able to impart them to the child 
without any mechanical drill (though instruction in order and accuracy 
in detail are essential), always bearing in mind that these occupations are 
only the tools for a systematic educational development of all the faculties 
born in and with the child; and that the explanation of how and why these 
tools are to be applied, according to obvious laws contain the most im- 
portant points of the system, and. further, that these laws have to be fully 
understood in the movement plays and use of the ball, as well as in the 
weaving and the modeling, so that their profound logical connection, for 
the rigorous, systematic appliance, may be recognized. This philosophic 
insiiriit into the depths of the system is needed to mature you to inde- 
pendence of thought and originality in arrangements, — for kindergart- 
nerinen are nothing if not original, — and that you may do justice to your 



672 KINDERGARTEN WORK IN CALIFORNIA. 

individual talents, your own conceptions, your own observation of nature 
and life, and of their educational relation to the child and its human ex- 
istence ; to be saved from the great danger of debasing the system to a 
repetition of mere words, phrases, and dead actions, thereby introducing 
more monotonies, more mechanism, and narrowing influences into this 
educational training than exists in the ordinary school methods. There 
never was a more liberal, tolerant leader than Froebel himself, who, in all 
his works and all his letters, addresses the motherly and individual 
natural teaching power and ingenuity, — the source of his own ideas. 

4. Those Avho are able to observe, to study, and describe, the wonders 
and the beauty of nature and man, in that elevating, poetical, and moral 
sense we call religion, — a religion which teaches the tender heart of the 
child what is right and wn-ong, by filling its sweet mind with taste for 
beauty; to reject the wrong instinctively and habitually, unconsciously 
becoming aware that it is born to serve itself and others, and that life has 
no other value than what we make of it by our own work, and that each 
one is responsible to the whole of which even the child is a part ; every 
play, every song, every little gift made by the child, being presided over 
by this spirit. 

5. And, finally, all those who are earnestly striving to fulfill these con- 
ditions may joyfully enter the glorious field of this educational mission, 
known under the name of the Kindergarten system. And if ever any 
earthly work does carry its own reward, it is the teaching and loving of 
our dear little ones according to Froebel's advice; making the teacher a 
child among children, and the happiest of all, because she feels that she 
is a teacher, a mother, and a playmate, all in one ! But she must not only 
be the youngest and the oldest of her circle : she must also unite them. 
The power she exercises will lead the children, unconsciously, either to 
wrong habits or right power. Her unworded but powerful example is to 
impress the young mind with all the higher aims and laws of life. 

She has to be true, firm, just, and above all, loving. The few rules, 
once given, have to be strictly kept; orders, when given, must be ful- 
filled. She must live in all and for all, never devoting herself to one 
while neglecting others. She must hear and see, have an eye for every 
thing, good and bad. Then the child will feel bound under the spiritual 
power, which will fill his whole imagination, his faith, his love, Ijis vene- 
ration. She will be a teacher who never fails! And this finally is the 
only key to disclpliae. Without it all other powers will be powerless. 

CALIFORNIA KINDEROAHTEN UNION. 

In 1879, at a meeting of Kindergartners held under the call of Miss 

!Marwedel at Berkeley on the 8th of November, an association M-as 

formed, with the avowed objects: "to preserve the doctrines of Frrebel in 

purity, to encom-age closer unity among his disciples, to interchange 

ideas, and discuss plans for improving materials, methods of teaching, and 

the Kindergarten." 

Officers for 1879-80. 

Miss Emma Marwcdel, President; Miss Kate D. Smi;h, Vice-President; 

Miss M. F. E. Benton, Secretary. 



PLEA FOR FROEBEL'S KINDERGARTEN 

AS THE FIRST GRADE OF PRIMARY ART EDUCATION. 
BY ELIZABETH P. PEABODY. 



ARTIST AND ARTISAN IDENTIFIED.* 

The identification of the artisan and the artist, which Cardinal Wise- 
man proves to have been the general fact in Greece from the sixth century, 
and in Rome from the second century, before Christ, was no accident, 
but the result of the education given to the initiated of certain temples, 
especially those of Apollo, Mercury, Minerva, and Vulcan. 

In Greece and Rome, there was an aristocracy of races and families, each 
')t which had its own traditions of wisdom and art, connected with the 
names of tutelary divinities, whose personality presumably inhered in 
leaders of the emigrations from Asia, who were doubtless men of great 
genius and power, and served with divine honors by their posterity, and 
the colonies Avhich they led. 

This service, in the instance of the gods above named, Involved educa- 
tion in the Fine Arts, just as that of Ceres and Proserpine taught the ini- 
tiated of one degree the science of Agriculture, and those of a higher 
degree the doctrine of Immortality (which vegetation symbolizes in the 
persistence of its life-principle and deciduousness of its forms). 

In the far East, the productive arts were early included under the word 
magic ; whose secrets, as an ancient historian tells us, were reserved as the 
special privilege of royal families, and hence died out. 

Under despotic governments, the inspirations of Science and Art inva- 
riably have died out into formulas to be worked out mechanically ; as has 
happened in China. But, in Greece and Rome, freedom, though it only 
existed as a family privilege, fostered individual originality. The initia- 
ted, believing themselves subjects of inspiration, would have that confi- 
dence in inward impulse, which, when disciplined by observation of. 
nature conceived as living expression of indwelling gods, could not but be 
beautiful and true. High Art excludes the fantastic, and is always sim.- 
ple, — because it is useful, like nature. The identification of the artist with 
the artisan will restore it, because the necessities of execution control 
design when artist and artisan are one. The modern artist is apt to design 
with no regard to use or nature. He needs the check of the executing 
hand upon his impracticable conceptions; and will be no less a gainer 
thereof, than the artisan, by identification with him. Haj^ in his several 
works, especially in the one on " Symmetrical Beauty," shows that the 
generation of the forms of the ancient vases rested on a strict mathemat- 
ical basis; and there is abundant evilence that the study of mathe- 
matics was quite as profound in antiquity as it has been since;, though 
then it was applied to art, rather than, as now, to the measurement 

♦The title given to a repuWication in Boston, in 1870, of Cardinal Wiseman's lecture on 
tlie " Relations of the Arts of Desii^n and the Arts of Production," to wldch- tMs paper of 
MissPeabody was appended. The lecture and plea had a wide circulation, 

43 



674 PLEA FOR KINDERGARTENS-1869. 

of nature. The wars and revolutions which convulsed the world in the 
declining days of the old Eastern Empires, and even of Greece and 
Rome, broke up the ancient schools of magic and art. They never, how- 
ever, were quite lost in the darkest ages, but preserved a shy and secret 
existence ; and, at tlie revival of letters in the twelfth and thirteenth cen 
turies, were restored for a splendid season of about three centuries, by 
secret societies, like the Freemasons, and in many ecclesiastical cloisters. 
Then building and other mechanical work again became High Art. 

This adequate education, with its elevating effect on the laborer, both 
in respect to his inner life and outward relations, can be given now, and 
in America, only by making our Public Schools give the same profound 
and harmonious training tu the whole nature of all the peoj)le that those 
ancient secret societies gave to the few, — a thing that is to be expected 
much more by reforming and perfecting the primary department, than 
by endowing universities ; though the latter are the cap-stones of the ed- 
ucational edifice. Even the late (1870) act of the Massachusetts Legisla- 
ture, requiring a free drawing-school in every town of five thousand in- 
habitants in the State, though it is a move in the right direction (and it is 
to be hoped that the working men will not let the law lapse by neglecting 
to call for its enforcement), will be of very little use unless the children 
shall be prepared for these art-schools in the primary department. It is the 
main purpose of the present publication to set forth that this can be done, 
and therefore ought to be done at once. Froebel's Kindergarten is a pri- 
mary art-school ; for it employs the prodigious but originally blind activ- 
ity and easily trained hand of childhood, from the age of three j^ears, in 
intelligent production of things within the childish sphere of affection and 
fancy ; giving thereby a harmonious play of heart and mind in actively 
educating — without straining the brain — even to the point of developing 
invention, while it keeps the temper sweet and spirits joj'ous with the 
pleasure of success. Childish play has all the main characteristics of art, 
inasmuch as it is the endeavor "to conform the outward shows of things 
to tae desires of the mind. " Every child, it play, is histrionic and plastic. 
He personates character with mimic gesture and costume, and represents 
whatever fancy interests him by an embodiment of it, — perhaps in mud or 
sand or snow ; or by the arrangement of the most ungainly materials, such 
as a row of footstools and chairs, which become a railroad train to him at 
his "own sweet will." Everybody conversant with children knows how 
easily they will "make believe," as they call it, out of any materials what- 
evei-, and are most amused when the materials to be transformed by their 
"peri^onifying and symbolizing thought are few. For so much do children 
enjoy the exercise of imagination, that they prefer simple primitive forms, 
which they can "make believe" to be first one thing and then another, to 
elaborately carved columns, and such like. There is nothing in life more 
charming to a spectator, than to observe this shaping fancy of children, 
scorning the bounds of possibility, as it were. But children themselves 
enjoy their imaginations still more, when they find it possible to satisfy 
their causative instinct by really making something useful or pretty. 

It was Froebel's wisdom, instead of repressing, to accept this natural 
activity of childhood, as a hint of Divine Providence, and to utilize its 
spontaneous play for education. And, in doing so, he takes out of school 



PLEA FOR KINDERGARTENS-1869. 675 

discipline that element of baneful antagonism which it is so apt to excite, 
and which it is such a misfortune should ever be excited in the young 
towards the old. 

The divine impulse of activity is never directly opposed in the kinder- 
garten, but accepted and guided into beautiful production, according to 
the laws of creative order. These the educator must study out in nature, 
and genially present to the child, whom he will find docile to the guid- 
ance of his play to an issue more successful than it is possible for him to 
attain in his own ignorance. 

Intellect is developed by the appreciation of individual forms and those 
relations to each other which are agreeable to the eye. There are forms 
that never tire. In the work of Hay, to which allusion has been made, 
it is shown that every ancient vase is a complex of curves that belong to 
one form or to three forms or to five forms; but all vases whose curves 
belong to one form are the most beautiful. These ground forms are of 
petals of flowers; and the mathematical appreciation of them is very inter- 
esting, showing that the forces of nature act to produce a certain symmetry, 
as has been lately demonstrated in snowflakes and crystals, that have 
been respectively called " the lilies of the sky, and the lilies of the rocks," 
(for the lily is the most symmetrical of flowers). Froebel's exercise on 
blocks, sticks, curved wires, colors, weaving of patterns, pricking, sewing 
with colored threads, and drawing, lead little children of three years' old 
to create series of forms, by a simple placing of opposites, which involves 
the first principle of all design, polarity. By boxes of triangles, equilate- 
ral, isosceles, right angled, or scalene, the foundations of mathematical 
thought may be laid to the senses. Before children are old enough for 
the abstract operations of simple arithmetic, they may know geometry in 
the concrete. And, in these various games of the generation of form, thQ 
greatest accuracy of eye, and delicacy and quickness of manipulation are 
insensibly acquired, precluding all clumsiness and awkwardness. 

Froebel's exercises with block, sticks, curved wires, triangles, which 
lead the children to make an ever- varying symmetry by simply placing 
opposites, are concrete mathematics, which become the very law of their 
thoughts. The mind is developed by appreciated forms and their com- 
binations. The same law of polarity is followed in the weaving of col- 
ored papers, where harmony of colors is added to symmetrical beauty; and 
from the moment when a child can hold the pencil, and draw a line a 
quarter of an inch long, he can also make symmetrical forms upon a slate 
or paper squared in eighths of an inch. 

But to conduct such education as this is a great art, founded on the 
deepest science both within and without the human soul ; and therefore, 
preliminary to its being undertaken, there must be a special training of 
the kindergarten teacher. Froebel never established a kindergarten any- 
where that he did not also establish normal training for young women, 
who were to supervise the children at their play and work, so as to make 
these guided exercises of the limbs and hands a moral, artistic, and intel- 
lectual education, all in one. 

For moral culture, it is necessary that the children produce things, and 
play with each other, from self -forgetful motives of gratitude to parents 
and affection for their companions, or a gentle sympathy for the unfortU' 



676 PLEA FOR KINDERGARTENS— 1869. 

nate. Moral culture cannot be given in a didactic manner. Sentiment 
becomes selfish weakness unless it is embodied in disinterested action. 
Even successful and happy play involves mutual consideration. It is 
necessary that children should act from a motive leading them from 
within out of themselves. There is no way to learn goodness but to 
be practically good. Froebel would not have children make things to 
hoard, or merely to exhibit their power, and stimulate their vanity; but 
to give away to some object of their affection or respect or pity. Before 
anything is done, the question always arises, Who is to be made happier or 
better by it ? They can be kept busy the whole year in providing gifts 
for all their friends' birthdays, new-years day, and the Christmas-tree; 
and, especially, if the poor and sick are remembered. Thus their activity 
is disciplined by their hearts, that supply the motive, no less than by their 
intellect, that accepts the law according to which the thing is made. 

They become intellectual by learning that there is always a law as the 
innermost secret of every object of nature and art. The rule involving 
the law is suggested in words at each step of the procedure, and repeated 
until the idea of the law is caught. As crude material and simple ground- 
form is varied into varieties of beauty, they get a knowledge, deeper than 
words can convey, of the substantiality of law, seeing it to be no less a 
factor of the thing than the material out of which it is made. In its 
turn, the material itself becomes the subject of an object lesson, not only 
as to its structure, but its origin; and this, when considered in its use, or 
the delight it gives, leads the mind inevitably to the spiritual Fountain of 
all good things. 

The child's own active heart witnesses to a heavenly Father, and pre- 
cludes any necessity for didactic teaching on that point. It is only nec- 
cessary to refer to Him when the little heart is full of generous love, and 
the little mind is realizing that its own tlimight is an indispensable factor 
of the thing done. Thus art-education is religious; because art is the 
image in man of God's creativeness. It has been profoundly said 
that, if science is irreligious in its effect, because it deals only in appear 
ances, and its method is analysis which murders, art is necessary to 
strike the balance in education, because it deals in substances, and not 
only produces, but makes alive by giving expression to matter. Since 
what makes the crude and unformed material which the child uses a 
thing of beauty or use, is the immaterial lesthetic force within him, which 
applies the law (itself an immaterial entity), he necessarily infers and 
appreciates that the universe as a whole is the guarantee of an immater- 
ial Creator who loves its intelligent denizens. 

It is impossible for a kindergarten to be carried on by a teacher who 
does not understand this constitution of human nature on the one hand, 
and the laws of the universe, in some degree, upon the other. No mechan- 
ical imitation, and no patterns are permitted; but the children are led on 
to act from their own thoughts by first acting from the teacher's sugges- 
tion or direction of their thoughts. It is astonishing to most persons to 
see how, almost immediately, they begin to invent new applications of 
the laws given. Originality is fostered by questions leading them to 
give an account of how they produce effects, which prevents destructive 
tendencies, and gives clearness of intellectual consciousness ; and no strain 



PLEA FOR KINDERGAIlTENS-1869. Qijij 

is put upon the brain, because the child is always kept within the child's 
world and made of ability there. In the moral sphere, also, questioning 
is a better mode of suggestion than precept. Unless there is a certain 
freedom of feeling, and virtue preserves a certain spontaneity, hypocrisy 
may be superinduced. Children love others as naturally and well as they 
love themselves, if not better; and love has its own various creative play, 
and its own modesty, which should be sacredly respected. Wake up 
the heart and mind, and moral dictation will be as superfluous as it is 
pernicious : and, above all, children should not be led into professions, 
or praised for goodness ; but goodness should be presumed as of course. 

In short, kindergarten education is integral, resulting in practical re- 
ligion, because it gives intelligence and sentiment to the conception of 
God and his providence, and prevents that precocity which is always a 
one-sided, deforming, and ultimately a weakening development. It is 
greatly in contrast with the ordinary primary-school teaching, which gen- 
erally begins by antagonizing all spontaneous life (keeping children still, 
as it is called), in order to make them passive recipients of knowledge 
having no present relation with the wants of their minds or hearts. 

But if the training which fits for kindergarten teaching not only in- 
volves knowledge of the sciences of outward nature to a considerable 
extent, but a study of the philosophy of human nature also, j^et it is 
such a philosophy as any fairly cultivated, genial-hearted young woman, 
of average intellect, is capable of receiving from one already an adept in 
it; for it is the universal motherly instinct, appreciated by the intellect, 
and followed out to its highest issues. Froebel's philosophy and art are 
just the highest finish to any woman's education, whether she is to keep 
a kindergarten or not. Froebel considered women to be the divinely ap- 
pointed educators of children, for the first seven years of their lives at 
least, until they become fully conscious of their power of thought, and 
know how to apply thoughrt for effect. For two or three years their 
place is in the nursery, whose law is acknowledged to be amusement. The 
nursery method of sympathetic supervision of children's spontaneity 
(which never should be left to uninstructed nurses) is simply continued 
in the kindergarten, where symbolic plays, for general bodily exercise, 
and the "occupations," as the quieter games of production are called, 
suggest conversations which are the first object lessons. It is quita 
enough intellectual work for children under seven years of age to learn to 
express their thoughts and impressions in appropriate words; to sing by 
rote the songs which describe their plays ; to become skillful in the man- 
ipulations that the occupations involve ; with such objective knowledge 
as is directly connected with the materials used. They can then go, at 
seven years old, from the kindergarten to the common primary school, with 
habits of docility, industry, and order already acquired; wide-awake 
senses and attention; tempers not irritated by stupid and unreasonable 
repressions of their nature, and wills unperverted, and reasonably obedi- 
ent. Is it not plain that, thus educated, they will easily learn to read ? 
and the knowedge acquired from books will stimulate production in large 
spheres of life, and the love of labor will not be in danger of dying out 
when the progressive rise into " the perfect, good, and fair " is guaranteed 
by works, that shall bring the life which is to come into that which now is. 



678 PLEA FOR KINDERGARTENS-1869. 

The immoral— some go so far as to call it the demoralizing— influence 
of our public schools, which now at best sharpen the wits, and eive means 
of power to do evil as well as good, has called attention of late to the 
character of State education, and the necessity of making it industrial, if 
only to save the masses of children from the temptations that now assail 
those who need to earn their living at once, but who leave school at four- 
teen or fifteen years of age unskilled in any species of labor. The only 
way to elevate the laborer to equal social position with the professional 
man, or even to self-respect, is to make labor spontaneous and attractive. 
But to make industry aktistic is the only way to make it attractive, and 
supersede that spirit of gambling in business and politics which so fear- 
fully weakens and corrupts our national character, and threatens the lib- 
erties which rest on truth and justice. 

Finally, unless the right thing is done at once, and this reform of the 
fundamental education is initiated by competent teachers, a very great 
evil will arise. Already children's schools, assuming the name of kinder- 
garten, — sometimes innocently, because ignorantly, — are growing up at 
different points in this country, which necessarily disgrace the principle 
of Froebel, who worked out, by a whole lifetime of experimenting, the 
true processes of the first stages of human education. These pseudo- 
kindergartens are a mere alternation of the old routine with plays and 
imitative working by patterns, making children frivolous, or little ma- 
chines, or else disgusting them; for, in proportion to their natural abound- 
ing life, children tire of what is merely mechanical. 

The first thing we have to do, then, is to train teachers in Froebcl's 
science and art. There is one training school (1870) at 127 Charles street, 
Boston, kept by Mrs. and Miss Kriege, educated in the best training 
school in the world, — that of Baroness Marenholtz-Bulow of Berlin, who 
is chief of Froebel's personal disciples and apostles. It is to be hoped 
that the city or State will make this a public institution. A verj^ supe- 
rior expert in the Froebel philosophy (Maria Boelte) now engaged in 
Lubec, Germany, and perfectly skilled in the English language, might 
be induced, by adequate compensation, to come and found another in 
some more southerly or western State.* If there could be raised by pri- 
vate donation, or public appropriation, a loan-fund to enable many 
young women who ardently desire this education to attend the private 
school of Madame Kriege, in a year we might have enough trained 
teachers to open schools all over the country; and effectually commence 
that radical reform of primary education which shall ultimate in the 
Indentification of the Artist and Artisan. ' What is well begun is half done. ' 

*In 1872 this lady, who was of high social position, and had, from pure love of the Art 
and Science of Froebel, studied with his widow three years, came to America at the in- 
stance of the celebrated Henrietta B. Haines of New York, and the nest year set up 
a trainiuti; school in New York. This she still keeps in that city— 7 East 22d Street, be- 
ing married to John Krans, a graduate of Diesterweg's Normal School, who emigrated 
some years previous to this country, and wrote in newspapers, especially in the Army 
and Navy Gazette on the subject. He assists his wife in her kindergarten with his fine 
music, and supplements it with an intermediate and connecting school. 

In the same year, 1872, Miss Mary J. Garland, a pupil of Mrs. Kriege, opened her kin 
dergarten school, as successor to Mrs. Kriege in Boston. 



CLAY MODELING FOR KINDERGARTENS. 

EDWAED A. SPRING. 



INTRODUCTION. 

With a few exceptions, laughed at as mere child's sport, or remem- 
bered in biographies of artists as indications of genius, clay modeling 
was, until Friedrich Frdbel's time, a technical process in the art of 
sculpture ; but it may be called a natural process. 

Some Modoc Indians told me that on the outskirts of one of their 
villages their children would make little clay men and animals, the 
wigwams, horses and riders; thus representing the whole life of the 
village. That was modeling. There is the sweet legend of the Child 
Jesus from the early centuries. He and his playmates modeled doves 
of clay, and his dove flew. 

If I say, " Voice unefemme et un enfant ; " if I say, " Hier ist einefrau, 
und ein kind ; " if I write this, " Mulier et in/ans ; if I do this (making 
a sketch on the board of a woman and baby), or if I do this (modeling 
rapidly a mother and baby in clay), it is merely using five different lan- 
guages to express the same idea. 

A French child would understand the first, a German child the 
second, a graduate of a European or American university the third, 
written there on the board ; any child of any nation or race, who was 
not blind, would understand a carefully finished drawing, — but all of 
the reasonable inhabitants of the earth, including the blind, could 
understand the idea expressed by the modeled group. A language, 
therefore, that appeals so generally to all intelligences, it surely is wise 
to use as one means of training. 

In my studio, for the past twenty years, I have been in the habit of 
setting little children to modeling. 

I soon found that with a rough lump of clay they seemed to have 
little ability to do anything but crush and crumble it, by themselves. 
But give them the idea of laying out the masses, and securing the main 
forms, and they accomplish, at least, something educational. Children 
are imitators. I have very seldom, if ever, known of a young child 
shaping anything in clay that was not suggested by some near associa- 
tion of ideas, or some other person's influence. 

Little Johnny F., held in his nurse's arms, was eager to get some 
clay, too, seeing his little sisters making ^he kindergarten standby — 
the "bird's nest." So I took a little piece in my hand and while 
watching Johnny's face, with my head a little one side, I rolled it into 
a ball, with the palms of my hands, and then I rolled it on the table. 
Giving Johnny a similar piece he made a ball, round enough to roll, 
about as quickly as I had made. mine. Johnny was about a year old and 
could neither speak nor step. There was one very funny thing — I could 
not get him to look at the clay in his hand for some time. He would 



680 CLAY MODELING FOR KDSTDERGARTENS. 

watch my face with his head on one side, a caricature of my action, 
and not until I had kept my sight riveted on several balls while I was 
making them, denying myself the study of his baby eyes, could I start 
him on the track of attending to his work, by sight as well as feeling. 

They are greatly pleased, when I give them a soft clay face, head, or 
animal, pressed in a plaster mold, with a suggestion from me of some 
change for them to make in it. 

. One little fellow who had been visiting his older brother at West 
Point, added a soldier cap and military moustache to the head I gave 
him. West Point must have made a powerful impression on him. 
Commonly, I find that they go but little way, unless told, for their sub- 
jects. Very possibly, in this case, some accidental scratch or bungling 
had given the face a likeness to an officer he had seen. 

Two little brothers, one with a long, and the other with a broad and 
very different face, were given "presses" of a face from the same 
mold. It was their first clay work, and each exaggerated his own 
peculiarities — a tendency towards self -portraiture, frequently shown by 
beginners in modeling and drawing, and from which many artists are 
not quite free. I was modeling in the next room, and they worked in 
unbroken silence for over two hours. Troubled that I had let them go 
on so long, I went to look after them ; but though they were tired, they 
did not want to stop, and when the elder attempted to correct the 
other's work, the little one burst out with great indignation : " No, you 
must n't touch it, that's mine ! " 

According to the principle of the new education, that whatever work 
is natural and pleasing to children, only needs guidance to become 
educational, Frobel made clay, which, when unsystematized, is hardly 
more valuable than any other substance to the child, a means of great 
use. In a substance so plastic as clay, the making of a desired form is 
reduced to the least mechanical difficulty. Frobel was a practical 
geometrician, and when Curator of the Geological Museum and later, 
took special interest and did practical clay work in crystallography, but 
he did not attempt to give young children a comprehensive understand- 
ing of all geometry, crystallography, or of all natural science ; nor did 
he divide the cube to show the tetrahedron, and the octahedron within 
the tetrahedron. He gave the child two standards of measure or form ; 
the ball, symbolic of organic things, and the cube, symbolizing inorganic 
things ; thus making the clay an essential part of his system of human 
development, while through several simple exercises some of his most 
important principles were rendered clear. These exercises and the 
occasional free use of clay, making it possible for the child to approach 
his baby ideals ; to feel that out of earth he can make something, have 
made modeling perhaps the most welcome and engrossing of all the 
kindergarten occupations. A ball is one of the easiest and best things 
for a child to make in clay. 

A word about so-called birds' nests. I am unable to see what educa- 
tional purpose it can serve to encourage children to punch a hole in a 



CLAY MODELING FOR KINDERGAKTENS. 681 

ball and call it a birds' nest. I never knew the birds that would lay an 
egg in the hundreds of birds' nests I have seen in many kindergartens. 
Where the children have known what real birds' nests are, I have seen 
some very typical forms modeled for nests of particular birds, but 
there is danger in falsely naming things to children. 

Children must and will learn, at an early age, certain properties of 
matter. Give them a little lump of soft clay to pull and cut apart. 
Then, after awhile they will find that by pressing and knocking, the 
divided pieces will stick together again. Thus they are prepared by 
experience for a later knowledge of physics, Also at once the baby 
experiences a thrill of delight. He has made something. As soon as a 
child has made a change in a piece of clay, even if only to obliterate 
the nose of a fine face, he claims the whole as his work and his prop- 
erty, in opposition to all comers. This feeling is so strong that I have 
found a very safe rule is, that " the modeling work of a pupil must not 
be touched by the teacher nor by any one else." 

In regard to the use of these molds, if a whole class in a school have 
impressions from the same mold, each one shows just what has been 
done, but with children in the kindergarten it would be very unwise to 
make use of molds of finished work, as the falsehood would grow of 
the claim, " / did that," when all the child has done is injury. 

Care should be taken not to let the first times of using clay be for so 
long continued as to be fatiguing. I should say, beginning with fifteen 
minutes as a first touching of the clay for such young children, the 
time might be extended by degrees to one or two hours without danger, 
provided there is no attempt to compel any particular work. Care 
should be had that every crumb of clay is saved and the place made 
tidy by the children themselves, to give them practice in elements of 
neatness and dexterity. 

Children have a wonderful quickness at distinguishing types of form, 
if they have opportunities of comparison, and this ability to see re- 
semblances should be encouraged. The baby will announce what he 
fancies his work is like witli the exultant, " I did it all myself." The 
delight of the artist in his highest success seems to be felt also by the 
child in his first essays, and like the artist the interest is centered upon 
the work in hand. 

Experience proves in hundreds of cases, that very young children 
will manipulate the clay more skillfully, up to a certain point, than the 
majority of adults if left entirely to themselves. Over zealous teachers 
sometimes prevent, by doing too much, what the children would ac- 
complish spontaneously if let alone ; still guidance is necessary. In my 
own case, I could have been saved years of practice if I had been 
started in the art work, as I can now see is done in the kindergarten. 
Palissy said, in his " Art de Terre," that he learned most by his own 
failures. Of course it is not the simple realization that we have failed 
which helps us, but the perception of how near we were to success. 
The educator should not lay stress upon the pupil's failures, but show 



682 CLAY MODELING FOR KINDERGARTENS. 

how a little step more would have accomplished good results. If ihe 
ring fingers or little fingers spoil the work, " Never mind ; try again," 
for a question, leading to the cause of mischief, is better than theoretical 
explanation. In the season of rapid growth, have a care how you dis- 
turb the root. In trying something new, the common difficulty is, too 
much muscular action ; the skilled hand being able to stop when it 
should, and the little steps less, many a time present greater difficulty 
than the little steps more. 

" Oh when will men learn how much strength lies in poise — 
That he goes the farthest who goes far enough. 
And all beyond that is just bother and stuif." 

SOME PRACTICAL HINTS ON CLAY MODELING. 

Modeling will keep little children engrossed in silence for the longest 
time, and the greatest delight is manifested in a school when clay time 
comes. 

Very little instruction is needed in order to set a child or adult on 
the way to help themselves. 

Then the outfit for months of work in clay and tools need not be 
more than three or four dollars. 

There are very few, if any, accomplishments or arts that can be fol- 
lowed at so little expense — and very often the best progress is made by 
those who have never tried to draw. 

The following five maxims will be readily understood by one who 
has modeled — and will be found wise to follow. 

Practical Maxims for Modelers. 

1. Add smooth to smooth. 

2. " The modeling is in the half light." — Hunt. 

3. Be neat. Keep the hands free from dry clay. Do not work in 
mud. 

4. " Use the largest tool." — Ward. 

5. " Make plaster molds, when needed, to serve as modeling 
tools." — Spring. 

1. How to Use the Clay. 

Add smooth to smooth. 

See that in joining clay to clay both surfaces joined are smooth. 
Ragged and torn surfaces of moist clay will not adhere together. Leave 
no air confined, and the clay work will stand firmly, and, if terra cotta 
clay is used, can be baked in a kiln. 

2. How to see the Work. 
" The modeling is in the half light." 

A strong light is wanted, from above the level of the eye. Turn an 
object in the hand, or the hand itself, and you will see that the slight- 
est roughness of surface is clearly visible only between the lightest and 
darkest places — i. e., in the " half light." Therefore, in finishing, es- 
pecially, the delicate modeling must be done by frequently turning the 
clay or moving the light, so as to work on the " halt light." 



II 



CLAY MODELING FOR KINDEKGARTENS. 683 

3. How to be Neat in Clay Work. 

Keep the hands free from dry clay and do not work in mud. 

Whenever clay begins to dry on the hands, wash them with a few 
rapid sweeps of a wet sponge, and rinse them well in several waters. 
This will keep the hands soft. Do not dry them on a dusty towel. If 
clay dries upon the hands it falls at every movement, and gets tracked 
about. It also scatters on the work and destroys the finish. 

Avoid touching the clay with wet hands, as that makes mud. The 
finger tips are sometimes used dry and sometimes wet. A modeler 
generally keeps a damp sponge, to be touched by the tips of the fingers 
and the tools. 

4. What kind of Tools to use. 

Use the largest tool that is fit for the work. In modeling, there 
can be only three kinds of surface to make, viz. — Plane, Convex, 
Concave, and their combinations. Any tool that will produce a given 
result with the fewest motions of the hand is the best to use. Clay 
could be shaped by simply pricking and scratching it with a point. 
But as such a point would be the least effective and slowest kind of 
tool, we may conclude that, to accomplish the most at each stroke, the 
largest tool should be used. It is the knowledge of these details of 
manipulation that saves the learner from discouragement or loss of 
time, and a few lessons from a competent teacher may do much to- 
wards starting anybody in modeling, and removing the idea that great 
talent is required to become an expert modeler. 

The mere practical work of modeling bears much the same relation 
to sculpture that hand-writing does to poetry. Anybody can learn to 
write, sing, draw or model, and yet great poets, great singers, painters, 
or sculptors will always be rare in the world. A few hundred years 
ago writing was as much a separate occupation as modeling is now. 

5. The Use of Plaster Molds. 

If there is a wish to produce the same, or nearly the same, form in 
clay several times over, it would be convenient to have a tool so shaped 
that by simply pressing, the form could be repeated. Such a tool is 
found in a plaster mold. The resources for accurate scientific study 
and comparison, and the various practical ways of utilizing this method 
of work, it will doubtless take years to develop. 

To make the mold — (1.) Surround the area for each mold, or 
piece of mold, with a "fence" of clay or other material. (2.) Spray 
it with a solution of soap. (3.) Mix plaster, and fill the space so pre- 
pared, and in half an hour the mold can be used. 

For modeling, procure clay such as potters use, either in the native 
state, moistened simply, or " washed," by mixing it to a thin " slip " 
with water, and letting the sandy portion settle, when the clear water 
can be run off, leaving the clay fit for use. 

The more clay is worked over the better ; so by carefully keeping the 
scraps and dry clay very clean, to be put in water and used again, a 
few cents worth of clay may do much service. 



684 CLAY MODELING FOR KINDERGARTENS. 

Keep the clay in anything air-tight; and after kneading it like 
dough, it is always ready for use. 

Finally : Never destroy your work when you are tired, nor from the 
disgust which comes too often in such work to every one ; perhaps as a 
reaction from its ennobling and intense enjoyment. 

MORAL AND MENTAL EFFECTS OF CLAY MODELING. 

The gardener has a love for his plants, and an acquaintance with 
them, such as no mere visitor to his garden ever can enjoy. 

The artisan takes pride in his work, and feels the triumph over 
matter at each step of his progress. 

The artist is thrilled with a glow of inspiration, as his ideal lives 
before his mental eye, and his hand seems about to give expression to 
that ideal ; and while he has a work on hand, nothing to him is so 
important. Wherever there is a growth, from imperfect to perfect — 
from beginning to end, the interest is kept up, and where such growth 
is the result of mental action, as it is in skilled labor, the interest 
seems to be in proportion to the quality of the mental effort. 

In fact our own work is a part of ourselves ; and as the bird has not 
the feeling for some other nest that it has for the one it is building, 
nor such care for other eggs as for those in its nest, nor such affection 
for other young as for those it feeds, so there is that powerful love of 
the parents for their children, and it is that relation of parent which 
the producer of anything bears to the work produced, that gives much 
of the zest to the work. 

How wise then, for educators to supply the conditions for those rela- 
tions of mental and physical action which draw out the powers to 
their best results. How wise to let the little hands make what the 
mind is busied with, and thus fix early in life a clear understanding of 
certain fundamental principles of the properties of matter and our 
relations to it, and give by steps of prudent length an assurance of 
power and skill to do good honest work, and a love for it. It is not the 
theoretical that is needed. We have too much of that already — we are 
talked di-y. 

History, as now read by many, proves that the success and the mas- 
tery reside on the side of the skillful hand, with the sound practical 
judgment and common sense growing out of experience. After a gen- 
eration of kindergartens, I believe that the art academies would begin 
instruction when now they give diplomas and medals to " those -who 
have it in them," and the average amateur might stand on the level of 
our artists. I would have very few professional artists, but I would 
aim at imiversal appreciation for their works. With such educational 
advantages in view, the question of children's modeling rightly appears 
as highly important. Two or three repetitions of an impression are 
sometimes enough to produce a habit in a baby. As we grow older we 
grow more slowly and are dulled, and things that could have easily 
become automatic in childhood, are only learned with the greatest 



CLAY MODELING FOR KINDERGARTENS. 685 

pains. For instance, many are rendered clumsy for life by using only 
the right hand. Modeling necessitates a skill of both right and left, 
and children acquire it rapidly. The training seems also to lead to 
appreciation of art work, and it is my happy experience that, after 
twenty years with children, singly and in large companies in my studio, 
with hundreds of fragile objects all about the place, I have never 
known of a child's doing the least damage, while grown people have 
meddled with and broken things. I believe, moreover, that were all 
children trained to use their hands in such work, the natural respect 
could be increased and the civilizing influence of beautiful and delicate 
objects would be known in our cities and our homes even still more 
than now they are in the older countries. 

" The moral effect of this occupation, is special, the yielding nature 
of the clay seems to develop conscious power, to prophecy the domin- 
ion over material nature, commanded in the morning hymn of crea^ 
tion, that begins the bible ; while the indestructibility reveals the 
iuexorableness of law ; truths which are opposite but not contradict- 
ory." Beginning with simple known forms, every day objects, pupils 
can be led to model in clay a connected series of objects to illustrate 
natural history, and finally, the unknown and inaccessible things, the 
furthest out-reachings beyond our limited eyes which the Scientist 
has attained through the telescope or the microscope which bring them 
to broad fields of interest and beauty. Let the mind be filled with 
lofty themes and the petty details of life become, not the end in view, 
but the steps upon which we rise to higher levels, and the scholar 
finds that he is surrounded by pleasant ways leading to those delights. 

Modeling inexorably combines the real and the ideal, those extreme 
contrasts whose combination makes the true man. For modeling 
begins in the ideal which moves the will, the will being kept from 
transgressing the real by the nature of the material upon which the 
instinct acts. 

The novelty, as to the mere material will pass, but though the 
worker live as old as Michael Angelo or Leonardo da Vinci, the en- 
thusiasm for learning will never pall. 

In Frobel's system, the child is not to become a botanist, a geom- 
eter or an artist, but is to develop toward roundness of character and 
general preparation for life; and blocks, clay, paper, thread, sticks, 
pencils and paints are only as so many rounds of the ladder. There 
can be very little of importance done as free modeling in the kinder- 
garten or school. Sculpture is a fine and subtle art which even the 
Greeks could not exhaust. Children are almost sure to copy or adapt 
in a weakened way, and unless they have before them the geometrical 
ideals and standards they become vague botchers full of chagrin. But 
neatness, skill in controlling both hands, and a knowledge of many 
properties of matter can very easily be gained by all children through 
clay, while the few who are born artists will expand in natural growth 
from the beginning. 



PKEE KINDEEGARTEN AND WORKINGMAN'S SCHOOL. 

WORK-EDUCATION FOR THE WORKINQMAN. 
Supported by the United Relief Works of the Society for Ethical Culture. 



INTRODUCTION. 

The Institution — of -which the Free Kindergarten located (1881) at 1531 
Broadway (corner of 45th street) is the first grade — was founded in 1878 
by the New York Society for Ethical Culture, under the lead of Prof. 
Felix Adler, Ph. D., as a model of the instruction which can he and 
should be given to the children of the people — to enable them, when grown 
up to be men and women, to help themselves, and at the same time to 
give the dignity of intellectuality to labor, and to workingmen as a class. 
Prof. Adler, in a Discourse before the Society, in October 1880, and in a 
report as Director of the Institution, sets forth with great clearness the 
aims and methods of its founders, and from these documents (a well- 
printed pamphlet of fifty-eight pages,) we give the following statement. 

THE INSTITUTION. 

The workingman's School and Free Kindergarten form one institution. 
The children are admitted at the age of three to the Kindergarten. They 
are graduated from it at six, and enter the Workingman's School. They 
remain in the School till they are thirteen or fourteen years of age. 
Thereafter those who show decided ability receive higher technical instruc- 
tion. For the others who leave the School proper and are sent to work, a 
series of evening classes will be opened, in which their industrial and 
general education will be continued in various directions. This graduate 
course of the Workingman's School is intended to extend up to the 
eighteenth or twenty -first year. 

THE FREE KINDERGARTEN. 

The characteristics of our Free Kindergarten may be briefly summarized 
as follows : 

It is a Kindergarten. It has the merits which belong to the Kinder- 
garten system generally. It is a Free Kindergarten for the poor, that is, 
it brings Kindergarten education to the poorest class, who are not able to 
pay for it themselves. It has the negative advantage of taking little 
children from the streets, where they would otherwise be exposed to bad 
companionship and pernicious influences of every kind. If it accom- 
plished nothing more than this, our Kindergarten would be rendering no 
little service. But it has also the positive merit of placing the poor chil- 
dren under the best educational influence which modern times have de- 
vised. It is moreover the first step in a rational system of education. 
Kindergartens exist in great number. But a very large part of their 
benefits is lost because the rational method which they begin is not fol- 
lowed up in the later education of the child. That our Kindergarten is 



683 KINDERGARTEN AND WORKINGMAN'S SCHOOL. 

connected with and followed by a Workingman's School, is one of its 
characteristics upon which I lay especial stress. Of other features of the 
Kindergarten, I mention the following: 

It has a Normal Class attached to it. This was founded by and is in 
charge of the Principal. The lady pupils of the Normal Class receive 
instruction gratis in the theory and art of Kindergartning. In return, 
they devote their service for a year to the Kindergarten, and assist in its 
practical management. We have thus every 5^ear a corps of eight or nine 
Assistant-Kindergartners supplied to us by the Normal Class. 

The Kindergarten has a Ladies' Committee directly concerned in the 
care of it. The ladies are members of the general Executive Committee, 
but they exercise especial watchfulness over the pupils of the Kinder- 
garten. It is their duty to visit the home of every applicant for admis- 
sion, in order that we may be sure that only the really poor are taken into 
our Institution, and we may thus be protected against imposture. The 
ladies also undertake at least one annual visitation of all the families con- 
nected with the Kindergarten, in order to foster healthful relations between 
the home aud School. 

Warm Luncheons are provided for the children daily in the Kindergarten, 
The little children often came to us hungry. We found it difficult to 
give them instruction on an empty stomach. A Free Kindergarten for 
the poor must look to the bodily wants of its pupils as well as to their 
minds. Garments and shoes are also distributed among the children by 
the Ladies' Committee, whenever cases of great destitution, such as often 
occur, are reported. 

The results already achieved by our Kindergarten work are satisfactory. 
Children came to us who could not smile; some of them remained for 
weeks in the Kindergarten before they were seen to smile. In the Kin- 
dergarten these sad little faces were gradually changed. The children 
were taught how to play; they learned how to be joyous. The children 
came to us unclean in everyway; in the Kindergarten they are made 
clean, and a neat appearance and habits of tidiness are insisted upon. 
The children's minds were awakened; their faculties — physical and intel- 
lectual — were developed. And here, of course, the degree of success 
achieved in each individual case varied with the natural ability of the 
pupils. Best of all, a powerful moral influence has been brought to bear 
on the children of the Kindergarten. Even the fact that they live in a 
little children's community, and are compelled to submit to the laws of 
that community, is important. Then, too, direct moral suasion is brought 
to bear upon the children by their teachers. The faults of each child are 
studied; obstinacy is checked, selfishness is put to the blush, and, by a 
firm, yet mild treatment, the character is improved. 

THE workingman's SCHOOI.. 

The school, in which wo?'A; will constitute an essential feature, not for 
its future productive value, but for its current educative intiueuce, was 
opened in February, 1880, under the direction of G. Bamberger, a native 
of Hesse, aud_ trained in the best methods, of which it is the aim of the 
founders to make this institution a model — "in which the entire system 



KINDERGARTEN AND WORKINGMAN'S SCHOOL. 6b9 

of rational and liberal education for the children of the poorer class migbt 
be exhibited from beginning to end." The example, "having once been 
set, would not be without effect upon the common school system at large," 
which is thought by the projectors (in the light of an article in Harpers* 
Magazine for November, 1880), not to be altogether satisfactory, at least for 
those who are to get their living by the labor of their hands, or to dis- 
charge the duties of men and women in American society. Assisted by 
the munificent gift of $10,000 from Mr. Joseph Seligman, the "United 
Relief Work " of the Society for Ethical Culture added to the Free Kin- 
dergarten, which had already attained to seven classes, the two lower 
classes of the Workingman's School — composed of twenty-five graduates 
of the Kindergarten. The Principal (Mr. Bamberger), in his first report 
at the Class of 1880, makes a statement, of which the following are par- 
agraphs: 

Our School is to consist of eight classes, of which two are now in opera- 
tion. The scheme of studies will be found appended at the close of the 
report. It embraces four hours' instruction weekly in the use of tools, 
and to this I beg leave to call especial attention. 

First, we begin industrial instruction at the very earliest age possible. 
Already in our Kindergarten, we lay the foundation for the system of 
work instruction that is to follow. In the School proper, then, we seek 
to bridge over the interval lying between the preparatory Kindergarten 
training and the specialized instruction of the technical school, utilizing 
the school age itself for the development of industrial ability. This, 
however, is only one characteristic feature of our institution. The other, 
and the capital one, is, that we seek to combine industrial instruction 
organically with the ordinary branches of instruction, thus using it, not 
only for the material purpose of creating skill, but also ideally as a factor 
of mind-education. To our knowledge, such an application of work- 
instruction has nowhere, as yet, been attempted, either abroad or in this 
country. 

The softest wood is too hard for the delicate fingers of children seven 
years old, and, moreover, requires the use of heavy and sharp tools, such 
as are not willingly entrusted to little ones at so tender an age. We 
finally decided to use clay. Clay, after it has been pVepared in a special 
way for this purpose, is easy to cut and to manipulate, does not stick to 
the tool, and is not brittle enough to break and crumble. This proved 
entirely successful. 

A complete series of patterns had to be invented which might be worked 
by young pupils out of this material. Thirty such patterns have been 
produced, and in them we have the .system of elementary industrial exer- 
cises, with which we begin. 

[Not having the use of the illustrations we must omit in this place the 
description of the exercises.] 

By means of a simple arrangement the school desks are converted into 
work-tables. Every child is supplied with a set of cheap and suitable 
tools. The work lessons occur in the afternoon on two days of the week, 
and last two hours each time. The pupils are obliged to behave as quietly 
during work as in the other school hours; only just so much M'hispering 
is permitted as is necessary for the requesting and rendering of necessary 
assistance. We endeavor to give the school-room the adr of a well-con- 
ducted workshop. Each pupil-workman has his own place and tools, for 
which he is held responsible so far as possible. All begin work simultane- 
ously, and stop at the same moment. . . . 

44 



590 KINDERGARTEN AND WORKINGMAN'S SCHOOL. 

These exercises possess educational value in many different ways, and 
may be shown, as we have said in the beginning, to be in close connectii n 
with many branches of instruction, and with the collective education of 
the pupils. Instruction in drawing must of necessity go hand in hand 
with the modelling. What is drawn here is manufactured there, and 
vice versa. 

Further, the rudimonts of geometry are taught by means of tliis work 
far better than with the aid of mere diagrams. And a large number of 
definitions and propositions, which are commonly remembered by routine, 
are, by our method, demonstrated to the eye, and thus remain stamped 
on the mind forever. 

Knowledge of arithmetic is also incidentally acquired. The children 
learn to cipher practically, to add and subtract, to read the figures on the 
scale, to divide and multiply them in the most various combinations. 

Even certain of the facts of natural history may be taught in connection 
with the work. The children learn to know the material which they are 
handling; they study various kinds of wood, their properties, marks of 
recognition and adaptation. The teacher goes back to the tree out of 
which the wood has come, and explains the formation of the annual rings 
so easily perceptible to the children. They are taught from these how to 
determine the age, quality, and value of the wood. Forms of nature, 
also, are actually copied in wood, clay, and plaster, whenever such imita- 
tion is possible; and when it is not, recourse is had to drawing. 

In this way we endeavor to make work-instruction contribute towards 
the general development of the child. The hand is educated by the mind, 
the mind by the hand. 

What further advantages does the introduction of this species of work- 
instruction offer? A great moral advantage, besides the purely intellect- 
ual ones. The habit of working together, of living, as it were, together, 
exercises the best moral influence. At an age when they are most sus- 
ceptible to educational influences, the children learn to live harmoniously 
in social groups, and become accustomed to mutual aid and support. No 
individual can place himself above another; all have similar duties, equal 
rights, equivalent claims. But, on the otlier hand, there is no false, arti- 
ficial equality. The children are taught from the beginning the necessity 
of subordinating themselves to the more able and skillful, while, warned 
by their own failures, they learn to sympathize with the weak and helpless. 

We endeavor to teach thoroughly, whatever branches are taught in our 
iSchool at all. We teach reading according to the synthetic analytical 
•method. The child does not spell, it reads phonetically, and what it has 
read in this manner, it writes; and what it has written it reads again, and 
•understands. The reading of print is reserved for the second school 3'ear. 
Why should we begin by placing two difficulties, two alphabets, in the 
•child's way? Why should children be taught to write, or rather draw, 
printed letters — characters which they never use, and which only serve to 
■render the hand stiff and ungraceful? 

In the study of geography we pursue the method that has proved suc- 
cessful in some of the best schools abroad. A very great number of men 
and women live in astonishing ignorance of their immediate vicinity. 
They may have learnt by rote to repeat the names of distant countries, 
the capital cities of those countries, the size of the population, the staple 
products, etc., but of real geographical knowledge they are destitute. 



KINDERGARTEN /ND WORKINQMAN'S SCHOOL. 691 

Our pupils are taught, in the first instance, how to make diajrams and 
maps of their own school-room, of the streets leading to their several 
houses, then of the city and its adjacent territory, etc. They are thus 
led, in the study of geography, step by step, to practical acquaintance 
with what is unfamiliar to them by comparison with what is familiar. 
The progress is logical — from the near to the remote, from the known to 
the unknown. 

In the teaching of history to these young children, we hold it essential 
that the teacher should be entirely independent of any text-book, and 
able to freely handle the vast material at his disposal, and to draw from it, 
as from an endless storehouse, with fixed and definite purpose. We 
attach even greater importance to the moral than to the intellectual sig- 
nificance of history. The benefits whirh the understanding, the memory, 
and the imagination derive from the study of history, are not small. But 
history, considered as a realm of actions, can be made especially fruitful 
of sound iulhieuce upon the active, moral side of human nature. The 
moial judgment is sti-engthened by a knowledge of the evolution of man- 
kind in good and evil. The moral feelings are purified by the abhorrence 
of the vices of the past, and by the admiration of examples of greatness 
and virtue. 

Instruction in the system of duties is a necessary element of all educa- 
tion, is, indeed, the keystone of the whole arch of education, without 
which any plan of studies must remain essentially incomplete. We pro- 
pose to offer such instruction to our pupils, and thus, to the best of our 
ability, to round off the scheme of their education. 

Prof. Adler, in the Discourse referred to in the opening paragraph, 
thus speaks of the design of the Workingman's School to diffuse sounder 
views than now prevail on the subject of equality and right. 

A pauper class is beginning to grow up among us, incapable of perma- 
nently lifting themselves to better conditions by their own exertions, in- 
capable of obtaining the satisfaction of their most natural desires, and 
only rendered the more dangerous and furious by the sense of equality 
with all others, with which our political institutions have inspired them. 
If the evil has not yet become so aggravated as it is in the Old World, let 
us utilize the time of respite which is given us bj-^ undertaking earnest and 
vigorous measures to check the evil's growth. And, of all these possible 
measures of prevention, a suitable, a sensible system of education is 
assuredly the most promising. Let us use what infiuence we have to cor- 
rect the false idea of equality which is everywhere current around us. 
Let us teach the people the true meaning of the great principle of equality 
— namely, that all men are created equal in respect to certain fundamental 
rights, such as liberty, the protection of the person, and a right to the 
pui-suit of happiness, but that there is by no means equality of natural 
fitness and endowment, and that the offices of life must always therefore 
be unequal!}' divided. Let us impress upon the minds of the children 
that the business of life will always be carried on in a hierarchy of ser- 
vices, and that there is no shame in doing a lesser service in this hierarchy; 
that all honor accrues to us only in doing that function well to which we 
are committed, and taking pride and finding dignity in its performance. 
And to enable the working people of the future to take pride and find 
dignity in the work of their hands, is the object of the work education 
which we are seeking to introduce into our schooL 



ANALOGIES OF TONE AND COLOR. 

D. Batchellor, of Boston, before the Aw 
Union, Mauch 1879. 

On the Use of Color in Teacliing Children to Sing. 



Read by Peof. D. Batchellor, of Bo.ston, before the American Feobel 
Union, March 1879. 



In our day there is a growing tendency to look at the arts and sci- 
ences in their relation one to another. The past age was mainly one 
of analysis, in which each seeker selected his own special study, and 
directed all his energies to find out the truth of that particular thing. 
In this way, a vast number of facts were observed, and underlying 
laws brought to light. The work is not by any means complete, and 
many earnest minds are still following up the separate paths of scien- 
tific discovery. But from the treasures already lying before them, some 
of our thinkers are now trying to deduce general principles, so as to 
arrive ultimately at the universal truth, of which all created things are 
but forms of expx'ession. 

It is everywhere seen that however complicated the details of any art 
may be, its fundamental laws are few and simple. The sculptor finds 
that beneath all the manifold changes of form, there can be but three 
ultimate principles ; his surfaces must be either convex, concave, or 
plane. The musician may exhaust his ingenuity to produce the most 
varied musical effects ; but all possible combinations fall back upon 
three tones, and these at last merge into one— the key-tone of music. 
The painter may revel in endless effects of shade, tint, and hue ; but 
they are all based upon three primary colors, and indeed, many sup- 
pose these to be only different degrees of one— the primal red. 

And not only do we find that the fundamental principles of each art 
are few and simple, but we also begin to perceive that a common rela- 
tionship subsists between them— that the elements of one are mysti- 
cally joined to all. No one art stands alone and separate from the 
rest, for each is allied to and dependent upon the others. Just as 
recent discoveries have shown that there is no clear boundary line be- 
tween mineral, vegetable, and animal organizations, so if we look 
beneath the surface and study deeply into any art, we shall find it 
insensibly blending into the other arts. 

This is especially the case with the kindred arts of music and paint- 
ing. Probably there are not many persons among those who have 
given the subject a moment's attention but do somehow feel that there 
is a mystic relation between colors and tones. It is true that their 
ideas upon the subject are too vague and shadowy to be grasped in 
thought ; but this is because they do not understand the relation of 
either tone or color to the mind. It is the writer's purpose to look into 
the matter a little more closely, to see whether this general conscious- 
ness, is confirmed by systematic observation. 



ANALOGIES OF TONE AND COLOR. 



693 



And first we will turn our attention to the effect which musical tones 
produce upon the mind. Music has been well defined as the language 
of emotion ; but the knowledge of how and why it appeals to the emo- 
tions has been hitherto confined to the few who were gifted with rare 
musical insight, and even in their case, it is doubtful if it has not been 
more a matter of intuition than of understanding. The ordinary 
teaching of this emotional language has been entirely empirical, being, 
in its earlier and more important stages, a stereotyped routine of me- 
chanical drilling, about equally wearisome and unprofitable. The phil- 
osophic method of instruction would be to find out the central fact or 
root-principle of music, and then, liaving implanted it in the student's 
mind, to let it develop itself naturally, taking on signs — i. e. notation — 
as it needed visible embodiment. Instead of a method like this, the 
student isset to study a complicated set of signs, which are nothing, 
after all, but the accidental surroundings of music. 

A noble exception, however, to the general rule is to be found in the 
Tonic Sol-fa Method, which has been so successful in England. This 
system from the beginning and throughout clearly sets forth the fun- 
damental principle of key-relationship ; — i. e., the relation which each 
tone of the scale bears to its key-tone. The thorough application of 
this principle led to another very interesting discovery. In comparing 
these tones one with another, and observing how the composers used 
them in their works, the tonic sol-faists found that each tone had a 
distinct character, and produced an impression upon the mind peculiar 
to itself. Thus the key-tone gives the impression of firmness and 
strength. The ear is filled with it at the commencement ; we want to 
hear it frequently in the course of the music, and if it did not come in 
at the close, the mind would be kept waiting in suspense for a more 
restful finish. This is the foundation tone of musical structure ; but 
although it is essential to every tune, and lies firmly imbedded in the 
harmony, it does not necessarily arrest the attention of the listener. 
More often, like the strong foundations of a building which are buried 
out of sight, the tone produces an unconscious impression of strength 
and satisfaction. This strong tone, however, is quite noticeable in 
melodies of a bold character, e. g. : — 



A 



^ 



1 



cry breaks forth like thun - der roar. 



And in the following example the tone happily expresses confident 
assurance : — 



F^i^Tl 


* * 

_j2 p^ s 


h-H 


V^ 


-J *'-J=-J— - <^/^ 


=i— it^l 



know that my re - deem • er 



liv - eth. 



694 



ANALOGIES OF TONE AND COLOR. 



The fifth, or Dominant, which is the first to respond to the call of the 
Tonic, is a clear ringing tone, and generally gives the impression of 
joyous activity. In this respect it is in marked contrast with the firm 
repose of the keytone. The following illustration from Handel shows 
the bold stirring effect of the fifth : — 



~M^-^ 



^^ 



i 



Tlie trum - pet shall sound. 

Or for a clear and sweet effect take this : — 

4 




^-=^- 



P (Z- 



1 



And like 



sil - ver clar - ion rung ! 



The third, or Mediant, is of an altogether different type : it has 
neither the firm strength of the Tonic, nor the ringing clearness of the 
Dominant ; but is distinguished by its steady calmness. Its peaceful 
effect is beautifully shown by Mendelsshon in his " O rest in the Lord," 
the spiritual restfulness of which is due largely to the prominence 
given to this tone. 

These three tones form a harmonious combination, each supplying 
something which the others lack, and altogether making a perfect 
whole. They are the principal constituents of the scale, and serve as 
points of support upon which the other four tones may lean. But al-- 
though these latter are dependent in their nature, each has a distinct 
character and produces its own impression. For instance, the second 
of the scale is of a hopeful or prayerful character, undecided in itself, 
but finding a sweet resolution upward into the third, or a strong reso- 
lution downward into the keytone, as in Pleyel's German Hymn : — 




S 



^ 



S 



5 



1 ^ 



■YS- 



Here is the same tone in a higher and more excited strain : — 



i 



f-f-^- 



^ 



■With shrill notes 



of 



ger, and mor 



tal 



a - larms ! 



The fourth of the scale is an awe-inspiring tone, and takes a very 
prominent position in the solemn Dead March in Saul. It is well 
suited to express despondency or foreboding, e. g. : — 



ANALOGIES OF TONE AND COLOR. 



695 



ES^ 



£E^ 



:=$ 



m 



So in the last and dread - ful hour. 

At the same time, it is capable of expressing grand outbursts of re- 
ligious enthusiasm, and there are some fine passages of this nature in 
the Hallekijah Chorus. The natural resolution of this tone is down- 
ward, into the peaceful third. 

The sixth, when taken slowly, is expressive of wailing sorrow, and it 
is the predominance of this tone which gives to slow minor music its 
peculiar sadness. Its effect may be seen in these two snatches of 
melody :— 



::1: 



-N- 



:t^ 



^li: 



By the 

f) 


sad 


sea 


waves, 


I 


lis - ten wliile they moan A 


la- 


y 1 




, 


N 






1 


/\ n 




1 I 


r ^ fL ^ 


I 


Ifh 1 


! ^ 




-\-y 4 




• 






L_« ^ 0- w_ 


» 



ment 
n h 


o'er graves 

1 Ik. 


of 


hope and pleas - ure gone. 

* 


U , 7 


1 ■ 1^ 1 




i>w 1 


/Lh- h 1* 




1^ 


1 K. 1 


MM r 11 


frh " 1 


•" If J 


n 1 


m 1 ! 


V- / > 


• 


J J 


• 11 








• ^ J- 





Fare - well, ye lim - pid springs and streams, fare - well ! 

The seventh is a sharp piercing tone which often expresses eager de- 
sire, as in "Angels ever bright and fair" and in "Waft her, angels." 
The resolution of this tone is strongly upward, into the keytone. 

These tonal effects can only be very ihiperfectly stated in words: 
they must be felt, to be understood. It must also be remembered that 
they only hold good when the tones are taken slowly, and in key-rela- 
tionship. Then, too, they are subject to considerable modification 
from differences of pitch, speed, force, grouping and harmony. But 
notwithstanding these changes of mood, they never lose their individ- 
ual character. This fact is kept constantly before the Tonic Sol-fa 
students, and as a result, they are able not only to sing at sight with 
great confidence, but also instantly to recognize the tones of a musical 
phrase upon hearing it. 

Turning now to the colors of the prism, we see that they differ in 
appearance, and that they do not all produce the same impression upon 
the mind. The first difference of impression which we perceive is that 
some colors are suggestive of warmth, others of coldness. 

Red, for instance, is par excellence the warm color. It is the color of 
blood and of fire ; it reminds us of the ripened fruit, blushing under 
the sun's warm kiss, and it is likewise suggestive of the rosy cheek of 
health. Hence red is associated with the idea of warmth and strength. 

This color has always been the chosen emblem of love ; — especially 



696 ANALOGIES OF TONE AND COLOR. 

the beneficent love of the Heavenly Father, or that which most 
nearly resembles it, — maternal love. Conversely — for each color has 
its opposite signification — red expresses vital hatred or animal passion. 

Blue, on the contrary, impresses us with an absence of warmth. 
Look at the cheeks and hands of a shivering child, and you will observe 
a blue tinge struggling with the natural red, which indicates a lack of 
vital warmth. Doubtless we have all experienced a chilling sensation 
upon the receipt of bad news, and we all know the vulgar idiom which 
describes such a check upon the vital energies as " a fit of the blues." 
Similarly a lack of generous vital impulse is implied by the express- 
ions " blue-stocking," " blue-spectacles," " blue-laws", etc. Some such 
feeling as this must have actuated the barbarous people who stained the 
bodies of those whom they intended to offer as sacrifices with blue. 
We find also that the ancient Egyptians represented the disembodied 
soul as of this color. 

Apart from human associations, blue impresses the mind with a 
sense of clearness and distance. It is the color of the atmosphere, and 
carries the vision away into boundless space ; hence it is the emble- 
matic color of eternity. Blue has always been regarded as bearing a 
relation to the intellectual side of human emotion. In sacred symbol- 
ism it is the emblem of Divine Truth. 

Yellow is the medium between these extremes. It has neither the 
warmth and strength of red, nor the clear coldness of blue ; but it 
forms the bond of union between the two opposites. Yellow is ex- 
pressive of softness and gentleness, and when it deepens into golden, is 
emblematic of moral excellence ; hence in mediaeval paintings and illu- 
minations, the saints are represented with a golden halo around their 
heads, and in the MSS. the name of God is inscribed in letters of gold. 
In its bad sense yellow signifies spiritual apostasy. Hence we find 
that at one time in some European countries, the Jews were obliged by 
law to wear a yellow badge, and Judas Iscariot is often represented as 
wearing a garment of that color. This reminds us that even to the 
present day English convicts who have attempted to make their 
escape enjoy the distinction of a yellow suit of clothes, and are popu- 
larly known as " canary-birds." 

Having proceeded thus far, let us review the ground over which , 
we have passed. We have seen not only that music makes a general 
impression upon the mind, but that each tone of the scale differs in 
character from the others, and impresses us in a way peculiar to itself. 
We have seen also that the colors of the spectrum produce mental im- 
pressions, differing in kind one from another. It now becomes an 
interesting inquiry whether these tone and color impressions are of 
the same nature ; and if so, where they coincide. 

That the mental effects of the two things are similar may be argued 
from the almost universal consciousness of a hidden sympathy between 
them. We observe too that the technical terms of the one art are con- 



ANALOGIES OF TONE AND COLOR. 697 

stantly running into those of the other. Thus while the painter uses 
such expressions as tone and harmony in connection with his art, the 
musician constantly speaks of chromatic tones, color effects, light and 
shade, and so forth. This tendency to confound the art-terms has 
sometimes been condemned by purists ; but it is a natural and almost 
necessary way of describing impressions which are so nearly alike in the 
mind. Indeed the more we turn our attention to this subject, the more 
evident becomes the analogy between tone and color. 

Although we are not discussing the matter upon its physiological side, 
it is perhaps worth while to glance at a few points of agreement in this 
direction. Observe, then, that the tone and color scales resemble each 
other in their origin, — both being simply forms of motion. In the one 
case, the waves of motion fall upon the ear, through which channel they 
are conveyed to the brain, and mysteriously produce the sensation 
which we call sound ; in the other, the exceedingly minute and rapid 
waves strike the eye, and being through that medium carried to the 
brain, cause the sensation of light or color. Further than this. Sir 
Isaac Newton himself pointed out that the relative length of the sound 
waves in the tone scale was exactly proportioned to the relative length 
of the light waves in the color scale. One striking point of difference 
is that whereas we can hear several octaves of tones, we cannot see one 
full octave of color, the eye stopping short at violet, instead of seeing 
through crimson to the higher red. But this discrepancy may be more 
apparent than real. It only proves that the ear has a more extended 
rangfe of faculty than the eye. Now it is known that we can only see a 
small portion of the rays of the prism ; far down Ijelow the deepest red 
extends a series of invisible rays, called thermal or heat rays ; and far more 
the violet extend other invisible rays, whose presence is demonstrated 
by their chemical action. In this wide range there is room enough for 
several octaves of color. And in proof that the colors do not end 
abruptly at the point where they become invisible to the eye, it is well 
known that under favorable conditions we see a deeper shade of red 
and brighter tint of violet. Then there are some persons who claim 
that they are able to see not only crimson and a finer grade of red 
beyond the violet, but also a whole octave of color of exquisite fineness 
and beauty. If this ever comes to be substantiated by more delicate 
scientific methods it will establish another beautiful point of agreement 
between tone and color. 

But passing by these physical analogies, we will consider the matter 
from a psychological point of view. And first we find that just as we 
distinguish out of the indefinite gradation of sounds a scale of seven 
distinct tones, so we are conscious of seven definite colors amid the 
blending hues of the spectriim ; and if we take into account the inter- 
mediate hues, we find that they have their counterpart in the chromatic 
semitones. 

Now let us compare the base of the spectrum, which is red, with the 



698 ANALOGIES OF TOXE AND COLOR. 

first tone of the musical scale. AVe have seen that the mental impres- 
sion which the key tone makes is that of fii-mness and strength. We 
saw also that the color red gave the impression of warmth and strength 
and so was allied to the most vital of our emotions — love and hate. It 
is worthy of note that while in music we have a constant tendency to 
fall back upon the key-tone for satisfaction, the poets in their word 
picturing use red — or colors which partake of red, such as rosy, crimson, 
purple, etc., — far more frequently than blue or green. And in proof 
that this is based upon a natural instinct, we find on the one hand that 
as a rule very little children, and also savages, first distinguish and 
take delight in red color ; while on the other hand, a tune to be really 
popular with the uneducated class of people, must be of a simple 
character, and must give special prominence to the key-tone. As good 
illustrations, we may refer to two songs, very different in character, 
and yet having this strong and popular element in common : the first is 
that famous German war-cry, " The Watch by the Rhine," and the 
other well known revival tune, " Hold the Fort." * 

Surely enough has been said to show the emotional connection be- 
tween Red, the foundation of the color scale, and Doh, the foundation 
tone of the sound scale. Both tone and color evidently make a strong 
appeal to our vital emotion. 

Let us next compare blue with the fifth tone of the scale. It was 
seen that this tone had not the strength and restfulness of the key 
tone ; but that it possessed considerable brightness and vigor. Its 
essential characteristic is a clear ringing effect, which often suggests 
the idea of going to, or coming from, a distance. Hence it is used by 
Handel in such passages as these, " The trumpet shall sound," " Their 
sound is gone out," " Arise, shine," etc. So much for the tone ; now 
for the color. In blue we noticed an absence of that vital warmth 
which characterized the red. It is clear, and often gives the impression 
of being much farther off than it really is. This illusion is very 
effective in a picture, where some object stands in relief against a dis- 
tant background of blue ; or it is perhaps even more striking in a stained 
glass window, where a figure is set in a background of blue glass, 
which appears to retire and leave the form standing prominently forth. 
From the same cause the effect is incongruous when patches of trans- 
parent blue form part of the figure itself. Doubtless this effect of dis- 
tance is due to the fact that blue is the color of the boundless firmament 
and that all distant objects have a bluish tinge. 

Now here again is a close agreement between tone and color impres- 
sions. Each of these seems to provide a bright outlook for the mind, 
and to excite the imagination, which may be called the poetry of thought ; 
we therefore regard them as motors of the intellectual emotions. 

We have now to compare yellow with the third tone of the scale. 



*The rhythmic movement is an important factor in popular tunes ; but to speak of 
that here would carry us away from our present subject. 



ANALOGIES OF TONE AND COLOR. 699 

Remember that yellow or gold bears the signification of spiritual excel- 
lence. This is possibly largely due to the fact that the color is associated 
with the sun, which in the early ages was worshiped as the chief 
divinity among the hosts of heaven. Bear in mind also that the tone 
is of a calm, peaceful nature, and although it fails to give the strong 
satisfaction of the keytone, it produces a feeling of spiritual restfulness 
which makes it beautifully appropriate in such music as Mendelssohn's 
" O rest in the Lord," and " Consolation." Here once more we trace a 
sympathy between the tone and color, both of which appeal to our 
moral or religious emotions. 

But now let us group these tones together, and compare the effect 
with that of the grouped colors. It is well known that the 1st, 3rd, 
and 5th of the scale sounded together produce perfect harmony ; they 
constitute the fundamental chord upon which all the other chords de- 
pend. It is equally well known that red, yellow, and blue form an 
harmonious combination which is more used in decorative art than any 
other color grouping. 

Again, if we i^lace red (not scarlet) and blue together, the effect is 
not altogether pleasing. The colors agree perfectly, but we are left with 
a sense of something wanting. In like manner the keytone and its 
fifth when sounded together are perfectly concordant ; and yet they 
produce a hard, bare effect, which is carefully avoided by musicians. 
But place yellow with the red and blue, or add the third of the scale to 
the other tones, and in each case a feeling of relief and pleasure is the 
result. This opens up an interesting psychological study. It reminds 
us that a person with developed vital and intellectual powers, but desti- 
tute of moral feeling, would hardly be a satisfactory bosom companion. 
At the best, it could only be a beautiful Undine before she had found 
her soul. Add the moral feeling, and we get a complete human nature. 

One more analogy between the two groups may be noticed. In the 
chord we can double either the root or its fifth with advantage, as a 
reinforcement of the root adds to its strength, and an additional fifth 
imparts brightness ; but a doubling of the third is generally unsatis- 
factory, too much sweetness without sufficient strength and crispness 
making the chord sound effeminate. A corresponding effect is seen in 
the colors. To produce the most pleasing effect, there must be more of 
red and blue than of yellow ; if the latter color preponderates, the 
effect is somewhat sickly. 

The foregoing analogies will suffice for our purpose. If we have 
succeeded in showing that a natural connection exists between the first, 
third, and fifth — the most prominent constituents — of these two scales, 
there is a strong presumption that the other colors and tones will also 
correspond. Further research tends to strengthen this belief, and we 
are at last brought to the conviction that the tone and color scales are 
but two modes of expressing one and the same great truth. This 
result is just what we might have expected, for all the discoveries of 



700 ANALOGIES OF TONE AND COLOR. 

science are leading to a grand centralization. Amid the endless variety 
of created things, thei'e are unmistakable traces of a wondrous unity, 
and we are beginning to understand how at the foundation of all there 
is "one God, one law, one element." 

But what is the practical outcome of this inquiry ? Granting that 
the tones and colors do produce similar impressions upon the mind, 
can this fact be turned to account in the education of the children ? 
Yes. Let the two things be made mutually interpreting. The eye 
and ear are the chief avenues through which the mind is impressed ; 
of these, the eye takes in the wider range, but the ear is the more 
profound, and the tone impressions stir us most deeply. The fable of 
Orpheus making all things dance to the music of his lute embodies a 
truth. It is a childlike way of showing what a moving power lies in 
harmonious sounds. See how a concourse of people will listen with 
breathless attention to the tones of a sweet singer ; or again how the 
tired soldiers on their forced marches will pluck up their drooping 
spirits and step forward with renewed energy as the strains of martial 
music fall upon their ears. See, too, how the practised orator can move 
the vast audience to laughter or to tears with the tones of his voice. And 
this suggests the remark that we are probably not aware how much 
our opinions of people are influenced by their manner of speaking. It 
has been noticed that the blind often form a truer estimate of a per- 
son's character than those who have the advantage of sight, because 
their sense of hearing is more highly developed, and they have learned 
to trust it implicitly. For the same reason, they probably have a more 
exquisite enjoyment of music than we can have. Our nearest approach 
to it is when we close our eyes and give ourselves up to the captivat- 
ing influence of sweet sounds. We have dwelt at some length upon 
this point for the reason that it is so generally misunderstood. Because 
sight is the more obvious, and also is educated out of all proportion to 
the sense of hearing, we are apt to form an unworthy estimate of the 
latter, and to ignore its wonderful possibilities of improvement. 

The sound impressions are deeper, and therefore more difficult to 
grasp, than the sight impressions. Children generally learn to distin- 
guish between colors before they can catch and reproduce different 
tones of the scale. A visit to the Kindergarten will make this plain. 
There it will be found that while the color sense in the youngest child- 
ren is well developed, the tone sense is very imperfect. Now if it were 
simply a question of later growth this early imperfection would not 
matter much ; but the evil is that many people have to go through life 
with what is called " no ear for music," and all for want of early cul- 
ture. Of a truth there is an urgent demand for better educational 
methods of ear-training. 

The chief difficulty lies in the abstract nature of sound. Children 
learn the properties of things by seeing and handling them ; but tones 
are neither visible nor tangible, therefore it is necessary to represent 



ANALOGIES OF TONE AND COLOR. "^Ol 

them by signs or notation. But the ordinary symbols which are used 
to indicate tones are entirely arbitrary, having no natural relation to 
the thing symbolized. The notes on the staff, for instance, only vaguely 
indicate that one tone is higher or lower than another, but show noth- 
ing of its character. Dr. Lowell Mason found the written signs of 
music so devoid of suggestion as to the real character of the tones 
that he once expressed a wish that the children could be blindfolded 
while they were learning to sing the scale. Where the eye receives an 
impression at variance with the ear, this would certainly be an advant- 
age ; but a better plan would be to engage the eye in sympathy with 
the ear, i. e., to use symbols which would naturally suggest the thing 
symbolized. This has to some extent been done. Mr. Curwen, the 
founder of the Tonic Sol-Fa school of m^ic, prepared a chart called 
the " Modulator," which shows exactly the position of the tones in the 
scale, and the relation of the different keys one to another. This is 
a great improvement upon the staff, with its complicated system of 
sharps and flats ; but still it fails to represent the menial effect of the 
tones. Another advance was made when, in a happy moment of inspi- 
ration, Mr. Curwen conceived the idea of representing the tone-charac- 
ters by hand signs. In this way, the strong effect of the key-tone is 
represented by the firmly closed hand ; the hopeful second, by the up- 
turned hand; the peaceful third, by the open hand with palm down- 
ward, as if in pacification ; the solemn ybur/^ with its leaning tendency 
to the third, by the forefinger pointing downward ; the clear open Jifth, 
by the extended open hand turned sideways ; the sorrowful sixth, by 
the hand drooping from the wrist ; and the sharp aspiring seventh, by 
the forefinger pointing upward. The success which has attended the 
use of these simple manual signs has been very marked. By means of 
them any succession of tones can be sung by a large number of persons, 
at the will of the hand performer, and many a tune has been dictated 
and sung in this way. But however great their advantage as a means 
of instruction, or for social recreation, of course they cannot be used 
as a written notation. 

It is here that we can make a practical application of the tone and 
color relations by using a color symbol to represent its related tone. 
Thus red stands for the keytone ; orange for the second : yellow for the 
third, and so on through the scale. Even as arbitrary symbols they 
would have one great advantage over other arbitrary symbols, viz. : — 
that children take a natural delight in colors, and so their sympathies 
would be enlisted on behalf of this notation. But when we add to 
this the suggestiveness of the color symbols, their value will be recog- 
nized by all who are interested in educational methods. 

"We have now to say a few words about the working of this color- 
tone method in the Kindergarten. Not that this is to be considered by 
any means as a complete account of the children's musical exercises, 
for in that case considerable space would be required to explain the 



702 ANALOGIES OF TONE AND COLOR. 

subject of rhythm, which constitutes the chief part of their earlier 
training. We pass this subject, not as unimportant in its place, but as 
not essential to a proper understanding of tone and color relations. 

In teaching the elements of tune, the children are led to listen to the 
keytone, its fifth and thii'd ; and to notice how very different they are 
in character, and yet how well they agree together. Next, upon any 
keytone being given, they will produce its fifth and third. After this 
is done readily, they are expected to tell the name of any one of these 
tones upon hearing it sung or played. To assist them in their study of 
the tones, the children have the hand-signs, and the sol-fa names, as used 
by the Tonic Sol-faists. 

Their first association of tone and color is by means of the colored 
balls. It is very interesting to the children to discover that their 
familiar playthings have a new meaning. The red, yellow, and blue 
balls can be personified as robin, canary, and bluebird; and little 
musical games may be made up, so as to present the tones in many 
ways, thus constantly deepening their impression. The children are 
then taught to associate them with other objects of the same color, and 
afterwards to see them arranged in their order upon the color chart. In 
the rhythmic exercises which precede this, the comparative length of 
tones has been learnt in connection with lines or sticks of different 
lengths. Now we combine these two forms of notation, color and 
length, i. e. — we use colo?-ed lines, by which means time and tune can 
be represented in one symbol. When the tones have become familiar 
in connection with the color chart, the teacher with colored crayons 
writes down a fragment of melody upon the blackboard. First, the 
children go through with the rhythmic form, using a set of simple 
time-names for the purpose, then sing through the tones slowly, and 
lastly sing in correct time and tune, thus getting their first idea of the 
construction of melody. They are now provided with colored sticks or 
narrow strips of card, and upon a given rhythmic form set to invent a 
line of melody. Then " the concert " begins, in which each child in 
turn sings his own composition, the teacher sometimes pointing out a 
fault, or suggesting an improvement. 

When the foundation is securely laid with these three tones, the de- 
pendent tones are introduced in their order, until the scale is complete. 
The mental effect of the tones is then studied more thoroughly, and 
the children — whose perceptive faculties are now more alive — constantly 
discover fresh characteristics in them. Of course various means have 
to be employed to give the tones a sort of personal reality. Of these, 
the children take most interest in what is called " The Musical Family." 
We have already discovered that some of the tones seem masculine 
while others by their comparative gentleness seem feminine, and we 
now decide that they shall be grouped into a family. The children 
have generally worked out the idea as follows : — Don is the father ; he 
is a strong, self-reliant man with a firm and full voice. Me is the 



ANALOGIES OF TONE AND COLOK. 703 

mother, because she is so gentle and full of sympathy. Soh, the eldest 
son, is a young man of joyous disposition, with a clear ringing voice. 
Fah is the younger brother, but not at all like Soh, for he is of a seri- 
ous disposition, and often has turns of gloomy despondency; though 
he sometimes gets roused into grand outbursts of religious enthusiasm. 
He is very fond of sacred music ; but we like him best because he 
shows such a constant attachment to his mother Me. Lah, the eldest 
daughter, is often found in a sad, complaining mood, and shows more 
tendency to tears than to smiles ; but she is apt at times to swing off 
into the opposite extreme of yaiety. There is considerable sympathy 
between her and her brother Fah ; she lacks his intensity of character, 
but in his company generally shows to good advantage, being then full 
of sweet seriousness. The younger sister, Ray, is of a hopeful, confid- 
ing natui-e, and it is beautiful to see with what tender affection she 
turns to her mother Me, or with what confident assurance she goes to 
her father Doh. Let it not be supposed, however, that she has a weak or 
vacillating nature, for when the occasion calls for it, she can rouse us 
with terrible earnestness. There is one member of the family not yet 
introduced, and that is the baby Te (Si). The chief things that strike 
us about this little fellow are his shrill voice, and the habit he has of 
continually crying after his father Doh. This baby is a great favorite. 

By such methods as this the children learn to distinguish very readily 
between the different tones of the scale, and they soon gain the power 
of singing them at sight, as well as of recognizing them by ear. In their 
ear exercises they first learn to distinguish any one tone, then two or 
three tones in succession, and from that they are soon able to name all 
the tones in a line of melody which is sung to them. Their answers 
may be given either in the tone names, by the hand-signs, or, if they are 
able, by writing on the blackboard, while the others watch carefully for 
the chance of a mistake. 

Their construction exercises in rhythm and melody now become 
more elaborate, and they are led to see the relation which one phrase 
should bear to another. After they can produce two lines which agree 
well together they may attempt four, and so make complete tunes. 
They receive help in this direction by each in turn standing out before 
the others, and dictating exercises with the hand-signs. 

The introduction of harmony marks a distinct advance in musical 
education, and requires care on the part of the teacher. The children 
find the compound impression of hearing two tones together rather per- 
plexing. The teacher prepares them to hold their own part side by side 
with another part by dividing them into two groups, and getting some 
to sing the tones which he indicates with his right hand, while others 
sing to his left hand-signs. He thus drills them upon strong fifths, 
sweet thirds, and tender sixths. Then a short and simple phrase is 
written down, with a second part below it ; at first the teacher sings 
the second part while they sing the first ; but afterwards they sing both 
parts themselves. 



704 ANALOGIES OF TONE AND COLOB. 

By this time, too, the staff notation may be introduced, and as soon 
as tlie symbols are explained the children will have no difficulty in sing- 
ing from it. Just at first, it may be well to place colored notes upon 
the staff, especially to show how the key-tone changes its position ; but 
as the symbols become more familiar, the colors maybe dispensed with, 
for they will have accomplished their purpose. Yet it will be a good 
plan for some time longer to mark the key-tone in every key and tran- 
sition by its color red. 

This color-tone method has been in operation for about two years in 
one of the kindergartens, where children varying from 3 to 8 years of 
age have been trained with very satisfactory results. At the beginning 
a few of the children seemed to have no musical faculty, and in them it 
has been like the growth of a new sense. It is very interesting to follow 
them and see how they first gain the power to recognize a tone by its 
character, and then by degrees to produce it themselves. 

The method is being used this year in all the free Kindergartens of 
Boston, but as yet the exercises have been almost entirely confined to 
rhythmic development. Upwards of eighty Kindergartners in this cjty 
are now being trained for the work. Training classes have also been 
held in Philadelphia, and the new method is being tai;ght there. 

In the course of this work, four things have become evident : — 

1. The musical faculty is as capable of being trained as the mathe- 
matical or any other faculty. What is called " no ear for music " 
means simply a sluggish sense which needs quickening, and which may 
be educated to an unlimited extent. 

2. The sense of time or rhythm manifests itself before the sense of 
tune, and consequently the earliest music lessons of children should be 
chiefly of a rhythmic nature. 

3. Children very readily associate the ideas of tone and color. There 
can be no doubt about this. When the color method of teaching music 
was introduced into the Kindergarten, it was found that the children in 
their other occupations often substituted the name of the tone for that 
of the color. One lady was for a time troubled because her three-year- 
old child was continually running about the house and pointing out 
every red object as " doh." This apparent confusion of ideas, however, 
soon rights itself. 

4. The sense of harmony is of much later growth then that of rhythm 
and melody. This may be seen in the musical history of the race. 
The rudest savage has some idea of rhythm which he tries to express by 
clapping his hands or beating on his drum while he performs his gro- 
tesque dance. Sense of melody marks a higher order of growth , for there 
is in it something of intellectual refinement. But the introduction of 
harmony is of comparatively recent date, even in the most highly civi- 
lized countries. This fact alone should teach us that it ought not lo be 
prematurely forced upon the children. Let them for the present work 
out their ideas of rhythm and melody, and in due time their minds will 
grasp and understand the complicated impressions of harmony. 



THE FREE KINDERGARTEN IN CHURCH WORK. 

BY KEV. R. HEBER NEWTON, D. D., 

Rector of Anthon Memorial Church, New York. 



CHURCH WORK — EDUCATION. 

Church work is slowly coming to be read, I think, in the light of 
those great words of the Church's Head, which illumine his personal 
mission. " And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up : 
and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath 
day and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto him the 
book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book he 
found the place where it was wi'itten — The Spirit of the Lord is upon 
me, because He hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor ; He 
hath sent me to heal the broken hearted, to preach deliverance to the 
captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that 
are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord." " Now when 
John had heard in the prison the works of Christ, he sent two of his 
disciples and said unto him — Art thou he that should come, or do we 
look for another? Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and shew 
John again those things which ye do hear and see : the blind receive 
their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf 
hear, the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached 
unto them." 

The Master's mission was to heal the sickness and sorrow and suffer- 
ing and sin of earth, in the power of that Holy Spirit which was to 
continue his work, slowly developing " the regeneration " of all things, 
in a new heavens and a new earth. His credentials were the signs of 
his power to effect this herculean labor. The Church's work must 
then be the carrying on of his task of social regeneration ; a labor of 
practical philanthropy led up into the heights of spiritual re-formation ; 
and the " notes " of a true church will lie in its possession of the Master's 
power to further the slow evolution of the better order. If only to 
make earth the nursery for the heavens it must be put into order, the 
frightful ills of civilization be healed, the dreadful disorders of society 
be righted, and man be breathed out into the son of God. The mag- 
nificent asi:iiration of St Paul is the ideal unto which all church work 
yearns — " Till we all come, (beggarlj', diseased, vicious, malformed 
runts of humanity) in the imity of the faith, and of the knowledge of 
the son of God, unto a perfect man (manhood) ; to the measure of the 
stature of the fullness of Christ " 

Such a church work must plainly be a task of education. And unto 
this form of philanthropy every labor of love for suffering humanity 
is coming round. The experience of all who grapple with the legion 
foi'ms of social ill results in one conclusion. Prevention is better than 

45 



706 ' THE FREE KINDERGARTEN IN CHURCH WORR. 

cure ; and prevention is — education. Sanitarians, prison reformers, 
temperance advocates, charity administrators, pastors, all alike are 
joining in one cry — educate. We grow hopeless of making over again 
the wrongly made up, mi'jshapen monstrosities charitably called men 
and women, and feel that the one hopeful work is in seeing that the 
unspoiled raw material, ever coming on, is better made up in the start. 
Given a true education and we may hope for a true manhood and 
womanliood, a true society growing steadily towards St. Paul's far off 
ideal. The Church's work would then seem to be that which the 
Master outlined in his parting word — " Go ye, disciple all nations ; " 
teach men in the life of the perfect man, train them towards the ideal 
manhood ; — a charge of education. 

1. Defects of the PeopWs Schools. 

Education of one sort and another we have no lack of, but thought- 
ful people are coming to see, that which the wisest educators have 
known for no little time, that it is mostly very crude and raw. Along 
with the conviction that education is the solvent of the social problems, 
there is spreading fast and far the conviction that we have not yet 
educated the true education ; that our present systems are viciously 
unsound and so are building up the old diseased body social instead of 
the new and healthy organism of the Coming Man. With all that is 
good in our People's Schools they seem lacking in certain vital elements. 
They fail to provide for a true physical culture, which, since health is 
the capital of life, is the prime endowment for every human being. 
They fail also to provide for any industrial training. Nearly all men 
and a large minority of women must earn their daily bread, and the 
majority of women must care for the bread their husbands earn. The 
great mass of men and women must be chiefly busied with manual 
work in the field, the factory or the house. To prepare this mass of men 
and women to do this necessary work successfully and happily, finding 
their bread in it honorably, and that bread of thought and sentiment 
on which the finer part of their beings live in the interest it calls 
forth — this would seem to be an essential part of a rational education 
for the common necessities of the common people ; all the more impera- 
tive since the old time apprenticeships have disaj^peared. In the 
absence of this practical training all ranks of labor are crowded with 
incompetent "hands," and domestic economy is caricatured in most 
homes ; a restless discontent with manual employments is pushing a 
superficially educated mass of men and women into the over full 
vocations supposed to be genteel, and storing up slumberous forces of 
anarchy among the workingmen ; thus sapping health and wealth in 
the homes of the poor who must need both. 

Then, to pass by other grave defects best behooving professional 
■educators to speak of, there is a still more serious lack in our Common 
School system which the churches are naturally quick to feel. The 



THE FREE KINDERGARTEN IN CHURCH WORK. 707 

greatest minds have always united in the view so tersely expressed in 
Matthew Arnold's familiar plirase, " Conduct is three fourths of life." 
Tlie end of all culture must be character, and its outcome in conduct. 
The State's concern in education is to rear virtuous, law-abiding, self- 
governing citizens. The Cliurch's concern is not something different 
from the State's; it is the same plus something more. She too seeks 
to grow good subjects, only running their relation to Law up and on ; 
men whose citizenship is in heaven. State and Church alike would 
nurture good men, for this world or the next. To this the Church 
believes with the State that moral culture is needful, but she believes 
also that religious culture is none the less needful. The churches 
feel the need of supplementing the education of the common schools 
with some ampler provision for moral and religious training. If the 
homes of the land were what they ought to be they would suj^ply this 
lack. But because of the utter imperfection of education in the ]inst, 
they are unfortunately far from being seminaries of character. Some 
other provision must be made. 

2. Ina'lequacy of Sumfay Schools and Pai'ish ScJwnls. 
The churches have utilized a simple mechanism for moral and relig- 
ious education in the Sunday-school. No word from one who owes so 
much to this institution can ever detract from its just honor. It has 
beon and still is an indispensable provision for our present stage of devel- 
opment. It is doing a noble work which else were left largely undone. 
But its best friends are not blind to its limitations. The clergy generally 
are painfully aware of its utter inadequacy to the great task it has as- 
sumed. Superintendents and teachers feel that they are asked to make 
brick without being supplied with straw. For an hour or an hour and a 
half, sometimes two or three hours, on one day of the week, a crowd of 
children, often reaching into the hundreds, are gathered into one room, 
placed in the hands of a changing corps of volunteer teachers, mostly 
vi^ry young, animated generally with laudable motives, but too often pain- 
fully unconscious of the momentousness of the task they have lightly 
undertaken, and all untrained for the delicate work of soul fashioning. 
As a system of education in Christian character, such an institution is 
grotesquely inadequate. For that educatioti must be chiefly a nurture, 
a tenderly cherished growth under the right conditions duly supplied ; 
a training rather than an insti'uction, a daily not a weekly work. 'J'lie 
ideal of such an education of course will be the story of the Perfect 
IVIan ; a growth, gently nurtured, in a jiious home, at the knee of a iioly 
mother, through patient years; hastened to the flower, under the soft 
springtide of the soul, within the warmer atmosphere of the Temple, in 
the opening consciousness " Wist ye not that I must be in my Father's ? " 
But again I say we are concerned with the unideal state of earth to-day, 
whereon homes are not like the Nazarite cottage and mothers are far 
below the stature of the great souled Mary. 



'708 THE FKEE KINDERGARTEN IN CHURCH WORK, 

What is to be done now ? Somelldng, plainly, the churches feel, and 
are sore perplexed as to what that something is to be. A portion of 
the churches seem inclined to try in some way to make the Common 
Schools attend more carefully to moral and religious education. But 
how to do it does not yet appear. The religious phase of this problem 
is beset with baffling perplexities. Others of the churches are tending 
in the direction of Parish Schools. But these cannot hope to compete 
with the State Schools in mental culture, and so must offer to the par- 
ents of the land the choice between a good general education with a 
defective moral and religious training, and a good moral and religious 
training (possibly) with a narrower and feebler general education. The 
average American will not long hesitate in that alternative, when he 
can relieve his conscience by falling back upon the Sunday-school. Our 
people are thoroughly committed to the system of State schools, and will 
not favorably view any apparent sectarian opposition to them. We 
need, not a system substituted for the State schools and benefiting only 
a small portion of the people, but, one supplementing the State schools 
and benefiting the whole people. Is such a system discoverable ? And 
can such a system for moral and religious nurture be made to supple- 
ment the Common Schools also in the other defects alluded to, the lack' 
of physical training and industrial education ? 

3. Importance of Infancy. 

The most valuable period of childhood for formative purposes is 
unclaimed by the State. The richest soil lies virgin, un-preempted, free 
for the Church to settle upon and claim for the highest culture. It is 
no new secret that the most plastic period lies below childhood, in 
infancy proper. Thoughtful people have long ago perceived that the 
chief part of all human learning is wrought in these seven years ; the 
greatest progress made, the largest acquisitions won, the toughest diffi- 
culties overcome. No pretentious culture won in later years is really 
half so wonderful as the almost unconscious education carried on in the 
period of infancy. Dame Nature is busy with her babes and has them 
at incessant schooling. From the first dawn of intelligence they are 
under an unceasing series of lessons, in form and color, in weight and 
resistance, in numbers and relations, in sound and speech. Every sense 
is being called into exercise, cultivated, refined. The perceptions are 
ever at work observing, compai'ing, contrasting. Mastery is being won 
over every physical power ; the eye, the ear, the hand, the feet being 
trained into supple, subtle skill. The bewildering fingermg of Ruben- 
stein or Von Bulow is not a finer discipline than the games of the active 
boy. 

The sentiments, the imagination, the reason, the conscience are under- 
going a corresponding development in this period we think of as all 
idleness. Here and there we get hints of the reach of infant mind in 
its beautiful thoughts, its fine feelings, its ethical distinctions, its 



THE FKEE KINDEKGAKTEN IK CHUIiCH WORK. ' V09 

religious musings. The vail lifts from the greatest of wonder lands, in 
which we all lived once and out from which we have passed through 
the waters of the river Lethe. We think liglitly of the inner life of 
infancy because we kiiow so little of it. We fancy that we are to teach 
our little ones religion. At the best we can ouly formulate the mystery 
which lies all round them, vague and nebulous but profoundly real. 
Below the best we succeed in botching and marring the divine growth 
going on within their souls, unseen by our dim eyes ; iu imposing our 
adult conceptions injuriously on souls unprepared lor them; and so 
make the windows through which our sin-seared souls see light, the 
shutters closing the light off from those holy innocents whose inner 
beings, angel-wise, do always behold the face of their Father in heaven. 
Wordsworth's ode is the very truth of the spirit world. The garden of 
the Lord, where God himself walks amid the trees in the cool of the 
day, is behind us all; and our best iiope is to climb round to it in the 
" lang last," as the seer visions in the far future of the I'ace and of the 
individual ; when having been converted and become as little children 
we enter once more the kingdom of heaven. For, as these words 
remind us, it is no less an authority than that of the Lord Christ that 
teaches us to view in childhood the spiritual ideal. 

Infancy then, (the first seven years), is the most vital period for the 
formative work of a true education, whether we have regard to physi- 
cal, mental or moral and spiritual development. Plato saw this long 
centuries ago. " The most important part of education is right train- 
ing in the nursery." [Laws 1 : 643.] 

As late as our greatest American theologian — the noblest of English 
theologians himself being the judge — this view reiterates itself with 
especial reference to the task of moral and religious culture the 
churches have in hand. Dr. Bushnell's "Christian Nurture" insists 
upon the prime importance of infancy. 

4. Educative Function of Play. 
If then the only period of childhood not foreclosed by the State be 
precisely that which is most hopeful for the true education, the educa- 
tion which aims for something like an integral culture, a fashioning of 
the whole manhood into health, intelligence and virtue buoyant with 
the love of God, the question becomes one of technique. How are we 
to utilize this most plastic but most delicate of periods ? How teach 
and train the tender lives which seem unready for anything but play ? 
All high and serious labor upon this period seems ruled out by the 
fractible nature of the material upon which we are to work. These 
fragile bodies can bear little fatigue, these tender minds can bear little 
strain, these delicate souls can bear little public handling without 
spoiling. "O, slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have 
written ! " — must we not hear the Spirit of Truth still sadly whisper- 
ing? Centuries since did not the teacher sent from God to the Greeks, 



710 • THE FKEE KINDEEGABTEN IN CHURCH WORK. 

the wisest mind of the wisest people of antiquity, tell the world — if, 
having ears to hear, they would hear — the riddle of this Sphinx ? 

'• Our youth should be educated in a stricter rule from the first, for 
if education becomes lawless and the youths themselves become lawless,^ 
they can never grow up into well conducted and meritorious citizens. 
And (he education must begin with their plays. The spirit of law must be 
imparted to them in music, and the spirit of order attending them in 
all their actions will make them grow ; and if there be any part of the 
state which has fallen down will raise it up again." [Republic 4 : 425.] 

" According to my view, he who would be good at any thing must 
practice that thing from his youth upwards,' both in sport and earnest, 
in the particular manner which the work requires ; for example, he 
who is to be a good builder, should play at building children's houses ; 
and he who is to be a good husbandman, at tilling the ground ; those 
who have the care of their education should provide them when young 
with mimic tools. And they should learn beforehand the knowledge 
which they will afterwards require for their art. For example, tlie 
future carpenter should learn to measure or apply the line in play ; and 
the future warrior should leai'n riding, or some other exercise for 
amusement, and the teacher should endeavor to direct the children's 
inclinations and pleasures by the help of amusements, to their final 
aim in life. . . . The soul of the child in his play should he traiiied 
to that sort of excellence in which when he grows up to manhood he 
will have to be perfected." [Laws 1 : 643]. 

Plainly the natural activity of infancy is play, and as plainly the only 
possible education in this period must be through play. This is pi-e- 
cisely the method of Mother Nature. She teaches her little ones all the 
marvellous knowledge they master in infancy through pure play of 
body and of mind. 

So far from play being at all inconsistent with leai-ning, the best 
w^ork in education does in fact take on the character of play. A critic 
as unsentimental as Mr. Herbert Spencer lays down the law that all 
education, in so far as it is true, tends to become play. He tests all 
methods by this criterion — is it task work or is it to the child as good as 
play ? It is our ignorance of child nature, our poverty of invention, our 
mechanicalness of method which leave learning mere work. All learn- 
ing ought to be spontaneous, joyous. Calisthenics is turning into a • 
semi-dancing, to the music of the piano ; natural sciences are coming 
to be taught through excursions in the field and wood, and by experi- 
ments in the laboratory ; the dry drill of languages is brightening into 
the cheery conversation class ; the catechism in the Sunday school is 
yielding room for the music of hymns and carols. There is nothing 
incompatible between the merry play of the nursery and the school into 
which we would turn it, if only we can be cunning enough to devise a 
subtle illusion wherein as the children think they are only playing we 
shall see that they are also learning. Leaving them their free, sponta- 



THE FKEE KINDEKGAKTEN IN CHUKCH WOEK. 7ll 

neous, natural impulses of playfulness, we may then lead these impulses 
up into a system which shall, with benign subtility, unwittingly to the 
children, school them in the most important of knowledges, train them 
in the most valuable of powers, fashion them into the most precious of 
habits, open within them the deepest springs of eternal life. Only for 
this finest and divinest of pedagogies we must, as the greatest of teach- 
ers has taught us, get low down to the plane of the little ones, and our- 
selves become as children, that we may enter the kingdom of heaven. 
For as Sir William Hamilton, and long before him Lord Bacon, pointed 
out, childlike docility of soul is the condition of entering into that 
province of the kingdom of heaven which is truth, as M'ell as into that 
which is goodness, the secret of philosophies and sciences as of theologies 
and life. To construct the true system of child-schooling we must be 
humble enough and wise enough to go to Mother Nature's Dame 
Schools and learn her science and art of infantile pedagogy. If f^ome 
genius, child-hearted, should seriously set himself to study sly old 
Mother Nature in hor most trivial actions, patiently watching her 
most cunningly concealed processes, he miglit steal ujwn her tluis and 
catch the secret of the Sphinx's nurturing by play, and might open for us 
the ideal education for the early years of childhood. And this is just 
what Frohel did. With unwearied patience and in the very spirit of this 
childlike teachableness he studied the plays and songs of mothers and 
nurses and children left to tlieir own sweet will, till divining at last the 
principles underlying these natural methods he slowly perfected the 
kindergarten; verifying it by faithful personal experiment and be- 
queathing to ihe generations that should come after, the child-garden, 
the sunny shelter wherein in happy play the bodies, minds and souls of 
the little ones should beautifully grow out into health, intelligence and 
goodness. 

5. Purifying Infiurnces of Happy Play. 

Visitors in a kindergarten watch its occupations and leave it M'ith 
the soi'^fiwhat contemptuous criticism — oh ! its all very nice and pleas- 
ant, a very pretty play. 

We'^-^ this all, the Kindergarten might enter a strong plea on its own 
behal*. In the foul tenements and the dirty stieets and alleys of our 
great cities the tainted air is sapping the vitality of the children, 
poisoning their blood, sowing their bodies with the seeds of disease, 
and educating the helpless hosts who crowd every market place of labor, 
unfit physically to contend in the struggle for existence. In these dull 
and depressing surroundings a gradual stupefaction is stealing over 
their minds, preparing that unintelligent action wherein those whom 
Carlyle called " The Drudges" are taking their place in society as the 
human tenders of our super-human machines. In the sad and somber 
atmosphere of these homes, whose joylessness they feel unconsciously, as 
the cellar plant misses the light and shrivels and pales, the inner spring 
of energy and its strength of character, the virtus or virtue of the 



'712 THE FREE KINDERGARTEX IN CHURCH WORK. 

human being relaxes, and their souls become flabby and feeble. Lack- 
ing the sunny warmth of happiness in childhood they lack through life 
the stored up latencies of spiritual heat which feed the noblest forces 
of the being. " We live by admiration, juii and love," Wordsworth 
says; which implies that we may die by joylessness. 

True, the child nature will not wholly be crushed out, and in the most 
squalid so-called "homes " in the saddest streets it will play in some-wise, 
though it is literally true that not a few have their playfulness smoth- 
ered within them. But what play! How dull and dreary, how coarse 
and low, — imitation, as the great Gi-eek said of many of the stage-plays 
of children of a larger growth, " of the evil lather than of the good that 
is in them." A veritable mis-education in play, as all who are familiar 
with the street plays of our poor quarters too sadly know, copying the 
vile words and brutal manners which are the fashion of these sections, 
feeding the prurient fancies which Mr. Ruskin says are the mental 
putreseuce gendered of physical filth in the over-crowding together of 
human beings. The play not as of the children of the Father in 
Heaven but as of the abducted little ones of the Heavenly Father, 
reared in the purlieus of their false father the Devil. So that there is a 
vast deal of philosophy in the remark contained in a Report of a cer- 
tain Children's Asylum in London, to the effect that the first thing the 
matron found it necessary to do with many of the waifs brought into 
the Home was to teach them to play ! 

If only the little ones in their most susceptive years are gathered in 
from harmful surroundings, are shielded from scorching heats and 
chilling winds, are warded from the wild beasts that lurk around the 
valleys where the tender lambs lie, though in pastures dry and by 
turbid waters ; if only, fenced in thus from the hearing of harsh, foul 
words, and from the seeing of brutalizing and polluting actions, they 
are left for the best hours of eacli day to disport themselves in innocent 
and uncontarainating happiness amid these " pretty plays," it would be 
an inestimable gain for humanity. For thus, in its native surround- 
ings, the better nature of each child would have a chance to grow, and 
the angel be beforehand with the beast, when, not for an hour on Sun- 
days, but always, their angels do behold the face of the Father in 
Heaven. 

The Lord God made a garden, and there he placed the man. So the 
sacred story runs, deep-weighted with its parable of life. A garden for 
the soul, bright and warm in soft, rich happiness, sunning the young 
life with " the vital feelings of delight " — this is the ideal state, or as we 
now phrase it the normal environment, for child growth. As much of 
the conditions of such a child-garden as can be secured in ''this naughty 
world " is the first desideratum for that education which looks on towards 
the second Adam, the perfect manhood, the measure of the stature of the 
fullness of Christ. To open such Child Gardens and to place therein 
loving, sympathetic women to mother their plays and keep them sweet 



THE FREE KINDERGARTEN IN CHURCH WORK. 713' 

• 

and clean and gentle, this were to do for the growth of the Christ 
Child a work worthy of the Christian churches. 

But this is far from all the good of the Child Garden. It is indeed 
only its outer and superficial aspect, in which, even before its most 
carping ci'itics, who know not what they say and so are forgiven. 
Wisdom is justified of her children. Underneath these " pretty plays " 
there is a masterly guidance of the play instinct in the diiection of 
th« wisest and noblest culture. They are faithful reproductions of 
Mother Nature's schooling in play, and every part of the carefully 
elaborated systeQi has a direct educative value in one of the three lines 
in which, as already indicated, our State' system seems most defective ; 
all three of which, in differing degrees bear upon that culture of char- 
acter with which the Church has need to busy herself, in disciplining 
men into the perfect manhood of Christ. 

6. Physical Training of the Kindergarten and its Bearing on Character. 

The kindergarten plays form a beautiful system of calisthenics, 
adapted for tender years, and filled out with the buoyancy of pure 
sportiveness. The marcliing, the light gymnastic exercises, the imita- 
tive games, with the vocal music accompanying them, occupy a consid- 
erable portion of the daily session in an admirable physical culture. If 
ordinary attention is paid to ventilation, and the room be, as it ought 
to be, a sunny room, guarded against sev/er gas and other " modern 
conveniences," this physical culture ought to have a most positive and 
beneficent influence on the health of the children. If a good substan- 
tial dinner is provided for them, one " square meal " a day added to 
the pure air and judicious exercise ought to lay well the first founda- 
tion, not alone of material, but of moral success in life. Health is 
the basis of character as of fortune. There is a physiology of morality. 
Some of the grossest vices are largely fed from an impure, diseased 
and enfeebled physique. Drunkenness, especially among the poor, is 
to a large extent the craving for stimulation that grows out of their 
ill-fed, ill-housed, ill-clothed, over-worked, unsunned, sewer-poisoned 
condition. Lust is intensified and inflamed by the tainted blood and 
the over-tasked nervous system. Purity of mind grows naturally out 
of purity of body. Physiologists understand these facts far better 
than ethicists. Then, too, lesser vices are in their measure, equally 
grounded in abnormal physical conditions. Faults of temper, irrita- 
bility, sullenness and anger are intimately connected with low health, 
the under vitalized state which characterizes the city poor. 

Perfection of character implies a happy physical organization, or 
that masterfulness of soul which is the rarest of gifts. Moderate appe- 
tites, a serene disposition, generous feelings, with their fellow excel- 
lences, may be the victory of the exceptional saints ; but they may also 
be the natural endowment of the healthy common people. A harmo- 
nious body will sublimate the finer qualities of the soul. In man, as 



•714 THE FREE KINDEllGAllTEX IN CHURCH WORK. 

• 

in the animals, when we see such pliysical organizations we look to find 
such moral natures. Axiomatic as this is, it none the less needs to be 
reiterated in the ears of moral and religious teachers. To claim this 
is to raise no question concerning the relative priority, in genesis or in 
importance, of body or mind. Even if the body be, as I certainly 
hold, the material envelope drawn around the spirit, molded and 
fashioned by the quality of the soul ; and the prime concern be there- 
fore with the vital energy and purity of the spirit; still according to 
the materials supplied in food and air, will the body thus organized be 
determined, and its reflex influence tell imperiously, upon the inner 
being. In striving to grow healthful souls we must, to this very end, 
grow healthful bodies. While feeding assiduously the forces of con- 
science and affection and will, we must largely feed them indirectly, 
by filling the physical reservoirs on which these virtues need must draw 
with sweet, clean, pure, full tides of life. The Church must learn a 
lesson from its Master, and be at once Good Physician and Mercilul 
Savior; restoring health as well as remitting sin. And the beginning 
of this dual work seems to me to lie in some such system of infantile 
physical nurture, carried on under the name and in tlie si:)irit of the 
Lord Jesus Christ. Our churches are all more or less busied with feed- 
ing the hungrj', and otherwise caring for the bodies of the poor. Will 
it not tell more on the work of saving men out of sin to put the money 
spent in alms to adults— largely misapplied and nearly always harmful 
to the moral fiber — into a culture of health for the children ? 

7. Iiulustrial Training of the Kindergarten and its Bearing on Character. 

The kindergarten plays form a most wise system for culturing the 
powers and dispositions which lay tlie foundation for successful indus- 
trial skill ; and this also bears directly upon the supreme end of the 
Church's work — the turning out of good men and women. 

The fundamental position of the kindergarten in a system of indus- 
trial education is recognized in German^'^, and must soon be perceived 
here. The natural instinct of childhood to busy itself with doing 
something, its spontaneous impulse to be making something, is in the 
kindergarten discerned as the striving of that creative power which is 
mediately in man as the child of God. It is utilized for the purposes 
of education. Pricking forms of geometrical figures and of familiar 
objects on paper, weaving wooden strips into varied designs, folding 
paper into pretty toys and ornaments, plaiting variegated strips of jtaper 
into ingenious and attractive shapes, modeling in clay — these, with other 
kindred exercises, " pretty play " as it all seems, constitute a most real 
education by and for work. By means of these occupations the eye is 
trained to quickness of perception and accuracy of observation, the hand 
to deftness of touch and skill of workmanship, such as a child may win, 
the sense of the beautiful is roused and cultivated, the fancy fed and the 
imagination inspired, the judgment exercised and strengthened, original- 



THE FKEE KINDEKGAUTEN IN CIIUUCII WORK. TlS 

ity stimulated by often leaving the children to fashion their own designs, 
while habits of industry are inwrought upon the most ph^stic period of 
life, and the child accustomed to find his interest and delight in work, 
and to feel its dignity and nobleness. How directly all this bears 
upon the Labor Problem, the vexed question of philanthropy, is patent 
to all thoughtful persons. Every market place is crowded with the 
hungry host bitterly crying "no man hath hired us," utterly uncon- 
scious that no man can hire them save as a charity. For skilled work- 
men and work-women there is always room in every line. Employers 
are importing trained work people in most industries, while all around 
lies this vast mass of people who never were taught to find the pride 
and pleasure of life in doing thoroughly their bit of daily work. 

Simply as a question of the prevention of suffering, the immediate 
step to be taken by those who would wisely help their poorer brothers 
is the provision of schools for technical training in the handicrafts, such 
as exist notably in Paris and in parts of Germany. And as the place to 
begin is at the beginning, any attempt to construct such a system of 
industrial education should start with the training of early childhood in 
the powers, the habits and the love of work, as in the Kindergarten. 
Miss Peabody's open letter to Mrs. Elizabeth Thompson arguing for the 
Kindergarten as a potent factor in the solution of the Labor Problem 
was thoroughly wise. In so far as education solves the problem, the 
Kindergarten is the first word of the answer yet spelled out. 

But the Labor Problem is not only the dark puzzle of want, it is, in 
large measure also, the darker puzzle of wickedness. Want leads to 
very much of the wickedness with which our courts deal. The preven- 
tion of suffering will be found to be the prevention of a great deal of 
sinning. How much of the vice of our great cities grows directly out 
of poverty, and the lot paverty finds for itself. Drunkenness among 
the poor is fed not only from the physical conditions above referred to, 
but from the craving for social cheer left unsupplied in the round of 
long, hard work by day, and dull, depressing surroundings by evening. 
Who that knows anything of the most pitiable class our communities 
show does not know whence and how their ranks are chiefly recruited. 
Of old the fabled city, to save its homes from being devoured, chose its 
fairest, noblest and best to offer up in propitiatory saci'ifice, and 
bound Andromeda to the rocks a victim for the monster of the sea. 
Our cities send press-gangs through the humbler quarters, entrap 
their hungry daughters with baits of food, their struggling work girls, 
mis-educated to the ambition of becoming ladies, with seductive snares 
of ease and luxury and gentility, and bind their poor maidens to the 
rocks of pitiless publicity with chains forged from poverty, welded in 
famine, and riveted with sham pride ; and thus, so say our wise men, 
preserve our homes intact. To eke out the insufiicient wages of 
unskilled work there is one resource for working girls. To realize the 
day-dream of the fine lady there is the whispered temptation of the 



V16 THE FREE KINDERGARTEN IN CHURCH WORK. 

Spirit of Evil. If the church would preserve the virtue so earnestly 
inculcated upon its Sunday-school children, it must not rest with inspir- 
ing the right spirit, it must impart the power to fashion the right condi- 
tions for virtuous life. It must not only teach the children to pray 
" Lead us not into temptation ; " it must train them so as to lead tbem 
out of temptation. 

Nor is it only a negative good thus won for character in laying the 
foundations of industrial education. The more manly a boy is made, 
the stronger he becomes for all good aims, the larger the store of 
reserved forces on which he can draw if he really seeks to win a noble 
character. The more of " faculty," as our New England mothers 
called efficiency, a girl is endowed with, the robuster is her strength- 
fulness of soul ; every added power of being garrisoning her spirit with 
a larger force for the resistance of evil. The mastery of the body, the 
culture of mental and moral qualities carried on in the process of develop- 
ing a skilled worker, finding delight and pride in doing the daily work 
well, help mightily towards the supreme end of life. Patience, perse- 
verance, strength of will, sound judgment, the habit of going through 
with a thing — these all tell on the great job the soul takes in hand. 
A number of years since Cardinal Wiseman's lecture on The Artist 
and The Artisan called the attention of the public to the necessity, 
not only on economic but on ethical grounds, of investing labor with 
dignity and clothing it with delight; of filling out the common tasks of 
the artisan with the spirit of the artist, and thus transfiguring manual 
labor into a spiritual education. Mr. Ruskin has been for years preach- 
ing sternly this new gospel. He finds in it a clue to the discontent and 
consequent demoralization of the mass of our unintelligent and thus 
uninterested labor, which turns from its ordained springs of daily joy, 
finding them empty, to drink of the turbid streams which flow too near 
to every man. 

Again the ancient parable speaks unto us. In the garden the Lord 
God placed the man to dress it and to keep it. The divine education of 
man is through some true work given him to do. While he does that 
well, finding his delight in it, all goes well. Sin enters when, discon- 
tented with the fruit that springs up beneath his toil, he covets that 
which grows without his toil. The use of the world as abusing it, in 
drunkenness and lust and every prostitution of natural appetite, is found 
in the classes whose joy is not in their work, either as having no work 
to do, or as despising that which is necessarily done. 

One of the finest and healthiest creations of the lamented George 
Eliot was Adam Bede, the carpenter whose work-bench was his lesson- 
book, whose daily tasks were his culture of character, and whose com- 
mon labor of the saw and chisel fashioned thus a noble manhood. Is 
not this the inner meaning of the fact that the world's Savior came not 
as the princely heir of the throne of the Sakya-Munis, in the splendid 
palace of the royal city of Kapilavastu, but as the carpenter's son in 



THE FREE KINDEKGARTEX IN CHURCH WORK. T 1 7 

the cottage of Nazareth? So that again we see the need that tlie 
churches should make a Cliild Garden, and place the infant Adams 
therein to dress it and to keep it. 

8. Moral Culture through the Social Laws of the Kindergarten. 

And thus we come at last to the crux of the case. The Kindergarten 
is a system of child occupation, a curriculum of play, looking straight 
on to the supreme end of all culture — character ; a child-garden w liose 
fruitage is in the spirit-flowering induced therein, beautiful with the 
warm, rich colors of morality, fragrant with the aromatic incense of 
religion. It is essentially a soul-school, reproducing on a smaller scale 
God's plans of education drawn large in human society. 

The little ones just out of their mother's arms are gathered into a 
miniature society, with the proper occupations for such tender years, but 
with the same drawing out of affection, the same awakening of kindly 
feeling, the same exercise of conscience in ethical discriminations, the 
same development of will, the same formation of habits, tlie same 
calling away from self into others, into the larger life of the community, 
which, in so far as civilization presents a true society, constitutes the 
education of morality in ' Man writ large.' Morality is essentially, 
what Maurice called it in his Cambridge Lectures, " Social Morality." 

An order is established round about the little ones, environing them 
with its ubiquitous presence, constraining their daily habits, impress- 
ing itself upon their natures and moulding them while plastic into 
orderliness. Certain laws are at once recognized. They are expected 
to be punctual to the hour, regular in coming day by day, to come w-ilh 
washed hands and faces and brushed hair, to be obedient to the Kin- 
dergartner etc. A sense of law thus arises within their minds. It 
steals upon them through the apparent desultoriness of the occupations, 
and envelopes their imaginations in that mystery of order wherein, 
either in nature or in man, is the world-wide, world-old beginning of 
religion ; while moulding their emotions and impulses into the habi- 
tudes of law wherein is the universal beginning of morality. 

All of the special habitudes thus inciuced tell directly and weightily 
iipon the formation of character; so much so that it is unnecessary to 
emphasize the fact, except perhaps in the case of the habit of cleanli- 
ness and the care of the person in general. " Cleanliness is next to 
godliness " ran the old saw, with a wisdom beyond the thought of most 
of those who glibly quote it in their missions of charity to the homes (?) 
of poverty, wherein to bring any true cleanliness needs nothing less 
than a new education. Cleanliness is essential to health, the lack of 
which saw, as already hinted, has so much to do with the temptations 
of the poor. It is equally essential to that self respect ■wherein ambition 
and enterprise root, and out of which is fed that sense of honor which 
so mightily supports conscience in the cultured classes. It is also, 
under the all-pervading law of correspondences which Swedenborg has 



718 THE FREE KINDERGARTEN IN CHURCH WORK," 

done most to open, inseparably inter-linked with purity, tlie cleanli- 
ness of the soul. Physiology and psychology run into each other 
undistinguishably in a being at once body and spirit, so that the stale 
of the soul is expressed in the condition of the body, and is in turn 
largely determined by it. To care for the purity and decency of the 
temple used to be priestly service. To care for the temple of the Holy 
Ghost still should be viewed not only as tlie task of the sanitarian sex- 
ton but as the charge of the spiritual priesthood ; not a policing of 
the building but a religious service in the building, an instruction in 
purity, a worship of the Lord and Giver of Life. 

9. Moral Culture through the Social Manners of the Kindergarten, 
In this miniature society there is a school of manners. One smiles 
in reading the account of the back-woods log school-house where the 
gawky lad Abraham Lincoln was taught manners. But indeed is not 
this bound up with any good training of character? The noblest 
schools of manhood have always laid great stress upon manners; 
whether it has been the Spartan discipline of youth in respect to their 
elders, through every attitude, as the expression of that reverence 
which they felt to be the bond of society; or the training of noble lads 
in the days of Chivalry to all high bred courtesy and gentle-manliness, 
as the soul of the true knight whose motto should be noblesse oblige. 
Goethe in his dream of the ideal education, in ' Wilhelm Meister,' made 
the training of youth in symbolic manners a conspicuous feature. 
So great a legislator as Moses was not above ordering concerning the 
manners of the people in his all embracing scheme of State education ; 
" Ye shall not walk in the manners of the nations whom I cast out 
from before you." So scientific a critic as Herbert Spencer finds in 
manners the outcome of a people's social state, i, e. of its moral state. 
True, the manners may be the superficial crust, the hardened conven- 
tionalities which neither express nor cherish the inner spirit, but so 
may ritual religion, the manners of the soul with God, become wholly 
formal and dead. Nevertheless we do not decry the ritual of religion, 
nor should we any more depreciate the ritual of morality, manners. 
The aim of the true educator should be to find the best ritual of mor- 
ality and spiritualize it ; present it always lighted up with the ethical 
feeling of which it is the symbolic expression. The homes of really 
cultured and refined people carry on this work, among the other 
educational processes which Emerson says are the most important as 
being the most unconscious. For the children of the very poor, whose 
homes are rough and rude, unsoftened by grace, unlighted by beauty, 
uninspired by an atmosphere of gentleness, unadorned by living pat- 
terns of cultured courtesy, the need is supplied in the Kindergarten, the 
society of the petite nionde. Herein the little ones have before them 
daily, in the persons of the Kindergartner and her assistants, a higher 
order of cultivation, all whose ways take on something of the refine- 



THE FREE KINDERGARTEN IN CHURCH WORK. 7l9 

ment that naturally clothes the lady ; and, seen through the atmosphere 
of affection and admiration which surround them, are idealized before 
the little ones into models of manners, which instinctively waken their 
imitativeness and unconsciously refine them and render them gentle, 
a very different thing from genteel. To the Kindergartner is drawn the 
respect and deference which accustom the children to that spirit which 
a certain venerable catechism describes as the duty of every child ; an 
ideal we may pray not yet wholly antiquated in these days of democ- 
racy, where every man thinks himself as good as his neighbor and a 
little better too, if the hierarchy we find in nature is still any type of 
the divine ordinations or orderings of society : " My duty towards 
my neighbor is ... to love, honor and succor my father and 
mother, to honor and obey the civil authority, to submit myself to all 
my governors, teachers, spiritual pastors and masters, to order myself 
lowly and reverently to all my betters." 

Among themselves in tlie daily relations of the Kindergarten, in its 
plays and games, the children are taught and trained to speak gently, 
to act politely, to show courtesy, to allow no rudeness or roughness in 
speech or action. The very singing is ordered with especial reference 
to this refining influence, and its soft, sweet tones contrast with the 
noisy and boisterous singing of the same class of children in the Sun- 
day-school not only testhetically but ethically. 

The importance given to music in the Kindergarten, where every- 
thing that can be so taught is set to notes and sung into the children, 
is the carrying out of the hints given by the greatest thinkers, from 
Plato to Goethe, as to the formative power of music. One who knows 
nothing of these hints of the wise, and who had never reflected upon 
the subject, in watching a well ordered Kindergarten would feel 
instinctively the subtle influence of sweet music in softening the 
natures of the little ones, in filling them with buoyant gladness, in 
leading them into the sense of law, in harmonizing their whole 
natures. I remember a late occasion when I was profoundly im- 
pressed with this and felt the words of the masters, long familiar to 
me, open with unsuspected depth. 

10. Moral Culture in the Nurture of Unselfii^hness. 
In this miniature society there is a schooling in all the altruistic 
dispositions, — to use the rather pretentious jihraseology of our later 
ethical philosophers, in lieu of any better expression — an education of 
the individual out of egoism, self-ism and the selfishness into which it 
rapidly runs ; an instruction in the principles, and a training in the 
habits of those duties each one owes his neighbor, which constitute 
morality. As in the association which civilization begins, and in whose 
increase civilization develops, so in this miniature society, individuali- 
ties are brought together from their separate homes in a common life, 
a community whose occupations, aims and interests are one ; where tlie 



V20 THE FREE KINDERGARTEN IN CHURCH WORK. 

pleasures of each one are bound up with the pleasures of his fellows, 
his own desires limited by the desires of his playmates, his self-regard 
continually brought into conflict with the resistance offered by the self- 
regard of others, and he is taught to exercise himself in thinking of 
his companions and to find a higher delight than the gratification of his 
own whims in the gratification of others' wishes. The law of this lit- 
tle society is the Golden Rule. This law is made to seem no mere hard 
imposition of a Power outside of them which they are painfully to 
obey, but the pleasant exposition of the Good Man within them, the law 
written in their hearts, which they can happily obey, finding that 
indeed " It is more blessed to give than to receive." The little ones are 
accustomed in their plays to consult each other's wishes and to subor- 
dinate their individual likings to the liking of some friend. " What 
shall we play now ? " says the Kindergartner ; and up goes the hand of 
some quick moving child — " Let us play the farmer." " Yes, that would 
be nice, but don't you think it would be still nicer if we were to ask 
Fanny to choose ? She has been away you know, and looks as though 
she had a little wish in her mind. I see it in her eyes. Wouldn't it 
be the happiest thing for us all if we let our dear little sick Fanny 
choose?" And this appeal to the generosity and kindliness instinct 
in all children, but repressed in all from the start by the barbarism 
into which the neglected nursery runs and unto which the competitive 
school system aspires, draws forth the ready response, " Oh ! yes, let 
Fanny choose." Thus the little ones have their daily lesson, changing 
form with each day, but recurrent in some form on every day, in the 
meaning of the Master's word and the spirit of his life. 

By the side of Johnny, who is bright and quick and is finisljing his 
clay modeling easily, sits Eddie, who is slow of mind and dull of 
vision and awkward of hand and can't get his bird's nest done. The 
Kindergartner can of course help him, but a whisper to Johnny sets his 
fingers at work with Eddie's in the pleasure of kindly helpfulness, and 
the dull child is helped to hopeful action, while the bright child is 
helped to feel his ability a power to use for his brother's good. If any 
joy or sorrow comes to one of the little company it is made the occa- 
sion of calling out the friemJly and fraternal sympathy of all the 
child community. "Have you heard the good news, children? IMary 
has a dear little baby brother, ever so sweet, too! Aren't we all 
glad? " And every face brightens and all eyes sparkle with the quick 
thrill of a common joy. " Poor dear little Maggie ! Is n't it too bad ! 
Her papa is very sick and she can't come to Kindergarten to-day. 
She is sitting at home, so sad, because her papa suffers so much and 
her mamma is so anxious. Don't we all feel sorry for her ? And 
sha' n't we send word to her by Bessie, who lives right near her, that 
■we all feel so sorry, and that we hope her papa will soon be well ? " 

Scarcely a day passes without some such occasion of calling out the 
sympathies of the individual children into the feeling of a larger life 
in common, in which they are members one of another and share each 



THE FREE KINDERGARTEN IN CHURCH WORK. 721 

other's joys and sorrows. " Bear ye one another's burdens and so fulfill 
the law of Christ," may not be written upon the walls of the Kinder- 
garten, but is written, day by day, in ifving lines upon the inner walls 
of those temples of the Holy Ghost, where it is read by the Spirit. 

11. Moral Culture through a Life, Corporate and Individual. 

In manifold ways each day also brings opportunities of impressing 
upon the little ones the mutually limiting rights of the members of a 
community, the reciprocal duties each one owes to every other one 
with whom he has relations, and to enforce the lesson, "No man liveth 
unto himself." A sense of corporate life grows up within this minia- 
ture community, which floats each life out upon the currents of a 
larger and nobler life. Each action shows its consequences upon 
others, and thus rebukes selfishness. Each little being is bound up 
with other beings, with the whole society, and his conduct affects the 
rest, changes the atmosphere of the whole company. Injustice is thus 
made to stalk forth in its own ugliness, falsehood to look its native dis- 
honor, meanness to stand ashamed of itself in the condemning looks 
of the little community. Justice rises into nobleness, truth into sacred- 
ness, generosity into beauty, kindness into charming grace as their 
forms are mirrored in the radiant eyes of the approving company. 
That very deep word of the Apostle, " Let him that stole steal no 
more; for we are members one of another," grows in such a child 
community, a living truth, a principle of loftiest ethics ; and in the 
sense of solidarity, the feeling of organic oneness, the highest joy of 
goodness and the deepest pain of badness becomes the perception of 
the influence, mysterious and omnipotent, which each atom exerts on. 
the whole body, for weal or for woe, in the present and in the future. 

And into this topmost reach of social morality the little community 
of the kindergarten begins to enter, blessing the individuals and pre- 
paring the soil for a higher social state, that life in common of the: 
good time coming. 

This social morality is cultured at no cost of the individuality. The 
sense of a life in common is not made to drive out the sense of a life 
in separateness, in which each soul stands face to face with the august 
Form of Ideal Goodness, to answer all alone to the Face which searches 
him out in his innermost being, and wins him to seek Him early,and 
to find Him. The true Kindergartner is very scrupulous about lifting 
the responsibility in any way from the conscience of the child. In 
these appeals to the better nature of all, it is that better nature of 
some child which is left to decide the question, only helped by the way 
she puts the case. Even in a case of disobedience to her command 
she is careful not fo much to be obeyed as to be obeyed by the self-won 
victory of the little rebel, who is given time to get over his sulk and to 
come to himself, and so to arise and say, in his own way, "I have 
sinned." Nothing in the whole system is more beautiful than this 
effort to have the child conquer himself. 

46 



72 2 TKE FREE KINDERGARTEN IN CHURCH WORK. 

The appeal is always through the sympathies, the affections, the 
imagination to the sense of rigiit in each child, to the veiled throne 
where silent and alone Conscience sits in judgment. Only it is an 
appeal carried up to this final tribunal by the persuasive powers of 
social sympathy, the approbation of one's fellows, the j udgment in its 
favor already pronounced by speaking faces and glowing eyes. As 
society affords the sphere for the development of conscience, so it fur- 
nishes the most subtle and powerful motives to conscience, and the 
individual life is perfected in the life in common. 

12. Moral Culture through an Atmosphere of Love. 

An atmosphere of love is thus breathed through the little society of 
the Kindergarten under which all the sweetness and graciousness of 
the true human nature, the nature of the Christ in us, opens and lipens 
in beauty and fragrance. All morality sums itself up into one word — 
Love. "Owe no man anything but to love one another: for he that 
loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit 
adultery. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear 
false witness. Thou shalt not covet ; and if there be any other com- 
mandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou 
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neigh- 
bor, therefore love is the fulfilling of the law." 

To teach children to really love one another, to feel kindly, gener- 
ous, unselfish dispositions towards each othei', and to act upon those 
dispositions, is to write the whole code of conduct in the heart. And 
plainly this is not a matter for mere precept. It is not to be effected 
by the most eloquent exhortations of Sunday-school teachers or of 
pastors. It is a spirit to be breathed within the very souls of the little 
ones in their tenderest years, from an atmosphere charged with loving- 
ness. This is what makes a loving mother in the home the true 
teacher of character in the true school, vastly more influential than the 
most perfect Sunday-school or the most wonderful church. And the 
Kindergarten is only a vicarious mothering for those whose homes 
lack this divine nurturing, a brooding over the void of unformed man- 
hood and womanhood by a loving woman, bringing order out of the 
chaos and smiling to see it " very good." Nothing that can help this 
quidkening of love is neglected in the Kindergarten. The daily work 
is wi'ought with some special aim in view, some thought of affection in 
the heart. It is to be a gift for father or mother, brother or sister, aunt 
or uncle, perhaps, unknown to them, for Kindergartner or for pastor. 

As I write I lift my eyes to look at a horse pricked out on white 
paper and framed with pink paper strips, wrought, with what patient 
toil of loving fingers, by the cutest of little darkies, the baby of our 
Kindergarten, for his pastor ; and duly presented — not without being 
lifted high in air and kissed most smackingly — to me on our last 
Christmas celebration. Thus the daily toil weaves subtle fibres of 
affection around the heart, models the soul into shape of gracious love. 



THE FREE KINDERGARTEN IN CHURCH WORK. 723 

All this beautiful moral culture is wrought through the happy jjay 
of the Child-Garden, with a minimum of talk about the duty of theae 
simple virtues and with a maximum of influences surrounding the chil- 
dren to make them feel the happiness and blessedness of being good. 
The atmosphere is sunny with joy. The constant aim of the Kinder- 
garten is to fill all with happiness. Cross looks and hard words are 
banished. The law of kindness rules, the touch of love conquers. Ko 
work is allowed to become a task. It is all kept plai/, and play whose 
buoyancy each child is made to feel inheres in the spirit of kindness 
and affection and goodness which breathes through the Kindergarten. 
They are all trying to do right, to speak truth, to show kindness, to feel 
love, and therefore all are happy. Now to be thoroughly happy, over- 
flowingly hapjjy, happy with a warmth and cheeriness that lights up 
life as the spring sun lights up the earth, this is itself a culture of good- 
ness. It is to fill these tender beings with stores of mellow feeling, of 
rich, ripe affection which must bud and blossom into the flowers of the 
goodness which are briefly comprehended under the one name of Love. 

" Virtue kindles at the touch of joy," 
wrote Mrs. Browning, knowing well whereof she wrote. Joyousness 
pure and innocent and unselfish, overflowing all around like the rich 
gladness of the light, is the very life of the children of God. " Thou 
meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness." The " vital 
feelings of delight," of which Wordsworth spake, feed the vital actions 
of righteousness, in working which God is met. The happiness the 
little ones have, whose angels stand ever before the face of their Father 
in Heaven, to become like whom is to enter even here the Kingdom of 
Heaven, must be something like the pleasures which are at God's right 
hand for evermore, a joy which expresses and which feeds the purity 
and the goodness of the children of the Heaven-Father. 

Is not an institution which provides for the cultivation of such social 
morality, under such an atmosphere of sunny joy, a true Child Garden, 
for the growth of the soul and its blossoming in beauty ? 

13. Religious Culture in the Kindergarten. 

What is thus true of the Kindergarten as a school of morality is 
equally true of it as a school of religion. In carrying on such a culture 
of character as that described above, the Kindergarten would be doing 
a religious work even though no formal word were spoken concerning 
religion. Ifc would be culturing the spirit out of which religion grows. 

Love is the essence of religion. All forms of religion in their high- 
est reach express this. Christianity positively affirms it. The very 
being of the Source and Fount of all spiritual life is essential love; 
" God is Love." He who manifested tjod to man summed the whole 
law in two commandments, the dual sphered forms of this life of love 
in man — " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and 
with all thy soul and with all thy mind. This is the first and great 
commandment. And the second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy 



V24 THE FREE KINDERGARTEN IN CHURCH WORK. 

neighbor as thyself." In the order of nature, love to our neighbor pre- 
cedes and prei^ares for love to God. Mother and father, brother and 
sister awaken love in us, drawing it out toward themselves, and thus 
educating the soul to flow up in love unto the life of which these earthly 
affections are seen to be but the shadows. Human affections are the 
syllables which when put together spell out the love of God. They are 
the strands which twine together into the " bands of a man, the cords 
of love " wherewith, 
" The whole round earth is every way bound by gold chains about the feet of God." 

They are pulse beats in the earthly members of the Eternal Life 

which 

" Throbs at the centre, heart-heaving alway ; " 

the Life 

" "Whose throbs are love, whose thrills are songs." 

The love of the dear ones in the home is not something other than the 
love of God, to be contrasted or even compared with the love we cherish 
towards the Father in Heaven ; it is part of that love, its lower forms, 
through which alone we climb up to a S.t. Augustine's passionate 
" AVhat do I love when I love Thee, O my God?" "He that loveth 
not bis brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he 
hath not seen." Every true love is the respiration from the soul of 
man of the inspiration of God Himself, the Essential and Eternal Love. 
Could the Church succeed in making its members so live that it should 
again be said — " See how the Christians love one another " — the world 
would own a new inspiration of religious life, a new revelation of 
religious truth. If the Kindergarten succeeds in making a child- 
society, filled with gentle, kindly affection, pervaded with the spirit of 
love, we should rest persuaded that herein it was working the " prepara- 
tion of the heart " for the higher love, to open duly in the Temple con- 
sciousness — " Wist ye not that I must be in my Father's ; " because in 
the flowing up of these springs of human love we should recognize, 
deep down below consciousness, the tiding of the Eternal Love, the well 
of water springing up within them unto everlasting life. 

But indeed there need be no lack of direct words of the Heavenly 
Father and to Him, such as make up what we ordinarily think of as 
religious education. The Kindergarten provides for a natural child 
religion, in its talks and songs and simple prayers. In the games 
wherein the little ones are familiarized with the processes by which 
man's wants are supplied, their minds are led up to see the Fatherly 
Love which thus cares for the children of earth. Awe, reverence, 
worship, gratitude, affection are suggested and inspired, and the child 
soul is gently opened towards the Face of Holy Love shining down 
over it, casting its bright beams deep within the innocent mind in 
thoughts and feelings we dimly trace. Of this speech about God there 
is a sparing use, according to the wisdom of the truest teachers. 

George McDonald tells how Ranald Bannerman's father never 
named GOD, till one rare, high moment, when nature spread her spell 



THE FREE KINDERGARTEN IN CHLTRCH WORK. 725 

• 

of gladsome awe, and jnvited the utterance of the ineffable name 
a;id the revelation the marriage of word and work should make. 

Glib garrulity about God is the vice of most religious teaching, 
" falsely so called," the bungling job-work of spiritual tyros who never 
should be set upon so fine a task as the culture of the soul. The 
simple child-songs, full of the spirit of religion, with so little about it, 
delicately uplifting the thought of the little ones to the Fatherly Good- 
ness ; the sacred word of child-hearted prayer in its one perfect form, 
" Oar Father who art in heaven, — " as the old rubric would have ordered 
it, " said or sung " in the opening of the daily session ; envelop the 
Kindergarten in a gracious sense of God, subtle as the atmosphere, and 
like it pervasive and all inspiring. Frobel was profoundly religious 
himself, and sought to make his new education above all a true religious 
culture. If it had stopped short of this it would have been to him 
maimed and mutilated. But he was too humbly true to Nature's 
mothering to spoil, in trying to improve, her gentle, quiet, unobtrusive 
ways of opening the child soul to God. He knew that the crowning 
consciousness of God in the child soul must bide its time, and cannot 
be forced without deadly injury. He knew that the twelve years in 
the home go before the hour in the temple ; are the rootings for that 
beautiful flowering. 

To create such an atmosphere around the tender buds of being, and 
enswathe them ere they consciously open to kn«w God with the felt 
presence of a Fatherly Goodness ; to teach the little ones their duties 
one to another as brothers, in such wise -that they shall come to recog- 
nize them as the mutual obligations of the common children of this 
Fatherly Love ; to guide their inquiring minds to see through all the 
law and wisdom and beneficence of nature the care of this Fatherly 
Providence ; to lift their tiny hands in simple, daily prayer to this 
Fatherly Worshipfulness — is not this a beautiful culture of essential 
religion in its child stage ? 

14. This Complete Child Culture the Foundation of Church Work. 

Combining this physical, intellectual, industrial, moral and religious 
culture, does not the Kindergarten become a veritable Child-Garden, 
where the tender saplings of the Heavenly Father are well started 
towards symmetric, rhythmically rounded wholeness, or holiness V Is it 
not the cradle for the Christ Child, the infancy of the Coming Man, in 
whose unspoiled childhood growing normally towards perfection " The 
White Christ," as the Norsemen call him, the pure, clean, holy Image 
of the Father in the Son, is to be " formed in " men, to be " born in " 
them, till " we all come to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature 
of the fullness of Christ ? " 

I make no exaggerated plea for the Kindergarten. To its defects 
and limitations I am not wholly blind. Its imperfections, however, 
are not serious, its limitations are no valid objection to it. It is con- 
fessedly only a stage in education, not a complete system. But that 



726 THE FREE KINDERGAitTEN IX CHURCH "WORK. 

• 

stage is the all important one of the foundation. True — "and pity 
'tis, 'tis true " — we have no series of such Child-Gardens, transplanting 
the children, stage by stage, after Nattu'e's plans, on into manhood and 
womanhood. After this fair beginning we have to transfer them to 
schools wholly uncongenial, not only to the best life of body and 
mind, but alas ! of the soul also ; where competition and rivalry, selfish 
ambition for priority of place, hard law and a stern spirit, chill and 
deaden the life so graciously begun, and prepare the children for the 
false society of strife and selfishness, " the world " which " if any man 
love, the love of the Father is not in him." Nevertheless, the founda- 
tion of the true education must be laid, in the assurance that it well 
laid the life will plumb somewhat squarer, and that upon it, shaped 
and ordered by its better form, string by string, the layers of the nobler 
education must rise, lifting humanity towards that blessed society yet 
to be upon the new earth over which the new heavens arch. Its mech- 
anique, however wonderfully wise, truly carries within it no such re- 
generating power unless a living soul vitalizes it. As a mechanism, it 
seems to me the most perfect the world has known. But the finest 
thing about it is the imperious demand it makes for a true personality 
at the centre of its curious coil. No other system of education is so 
insistent upon the necessity of a soul within the system, depends so 
absolutely upon the personal tnfluence of the teacher, and recognizes 
this subordination of method to spirit so frankly. It claims for itself 
that its mechanism provides a true means for the exercise of personal 
influence upon the lives of the little ones, prevents the waste of mis- 
directed effort, and the worse than waste such labor always leaves. It 
then seeks out and trains the true mothering woman, sympathizing 
with children, drawing out their confidence and affection, apt to 
teach, quick to inspire, an over-brooding presence of love, creative of 
order in the infantile chaos. The machinery can be worked in a 
woodenish way by any fairly intelligent woman. It can be success- 
fully worked to accomplish its grand aims only by a noble woman, a 
vitalizing personality. The Kindergarten is the wonderful body of 
culture whose animating soul is the Kindergartner. Its power is that 
on which Christ always relied, that on which the Church still leans — 
personal influence upon individuals ; and its sphere for that influence 
is the most plastic period of all life. The women whom the Kinder- 
garten seeks to win to its cause are those who come to its work in this 
spirit; women who want not only an avocation, a means of winning 
bread and butter, but a vocation, a calling from God for man. 

My claim for the Kindergarten is that it is a wonderfully wise sys- 
tem for utilizing the most valuable years of childhood, hitherto left to 
run to waste, in a beautiful provision for turning tiie play instinct of 
childhood into a genuine education of body, mind and soul ; that it 
lays the foundation for a really integral culture, a culture of the \vliole 
man, i. e. of holiness ; that it specially supplements the State system 
of education in the points where it is most lacking, the nurture of 



THE FREE KINDERGARTEN IN CHURCH WORK. 727 

health and industrial training ; that in so far as it does all this it com- 
mends itself most strongly to the churches as a branch of their work, 
which is on every hand tending towards education, as the only means 
of preventing those unfavorable conditions for character which the 
poor fiud surrounding tlieni, in their low health and their incompe- 
tency for skilled work ; and that above all this it avowedly seeks, and 
is admirably adapted to secure, an initial culture of morality and re- 
ligion patterned upon nature's own methods, i. e. God's own plans, 
whose fruition, if ever carried on through successive stages into adult 
life, would be that society of the Brotherhood of Man, in the Family 
of the Heavenly Father, which is the ideal unto which the Church 
slowly works, the Kingdom of God upon earth. 

If the Church be sent to heal all manner of diseases, physical, men- 
tal and moral, in the spirit and power of its Lord, by disciplining men 
into the name — the truth, the life — of that Head of the new Humanity, 
then is Church Work the education of men and women towards that 
ideal of St. Paul — " Till we all come in the unity of the faith and of 
the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of 
the stature of the fullness of Christ." 

And for this task of Christian Education, wherein lies Church Work, 
the foundation must be laid — next above the lowest string in the 
building, the Family, and in its place where it does not truly exist — in 
some system of Child Culture, under the laws of Nature and in the 
Spirit of Christ. The only approach to such a system the world holds 
to-day is the Kindergarten. Therefore I claim it as the fundamental 
Church- Work ; the Infant School of the Future ; the Child Garden 
wherein the little ones of the poor shall grow day by day in body, 
mind and soul, towards the pattern of all human life. 

The day is not far off when our present pretense of Christian Edu- 
cation in the Sunday School will be viewed as the mere makeshift 
of a time of zeal without knowledge, a provisional agency await- 
ing the coming of a real soul-school ; always perhaps to be continued 
for certain fine influences inherent in it, but at best only a supplement _ 
to the true culture of character ; needing to be molded upon that 
wiser system. The day is not far off when every church aiming to 
carry on any real mission work will have, as the foundation for what- 
ever system of schools it may be trying to build up, a Free Kinder- 
garten. Meanwhile every church founding one becomes a pioneer of 
the true Church Work. 

The thoroughly religious tone of this work can be secured, if any 
churches distrust the general supply of Kindergartners, by the jiastor's 
selecting one of those blessed women whom almost every congregation 
develops — apt to teach, full of love to children and to God — and per- 
suading her to train as a Kindergartner, and then take charge of the 
Parochial Kindergarten. 

True, this work will be costly in comparison with the poor work now 
done so cheaply and with such apparently large results. But as the 



728 THE FREE KINDEKGAKTEN IN CHUliCH WOKK. 

real spirit of love to God and man inspires the activity of the churches, 
and a true discernment of what is needing to be done grows upon them, 
the cackling and crowing of congregations over their ever-to-be-so- 
much-admired works, will give place to a quieter and humbler feeling ; 
and churches will be glad to do some smaller work, as men judge, if so 
it may only be true work for man well done in the Spirit of Christ ; 
and will rest content to sink a thousand dollars a year in nurturing fifty 
or a hundred little ones. Only poor work is cheap. And church work 
must needs first be sound, and only then be cheap as may be. 

True also the State may be appealed to for this pre-primary school- 
ing, and may engraft the Kindergarten upon the Common School Sys- 
tem, as has been done in some places; and thus relieve the Church of 
this charge. But if what has been here said commends itself to the 
minds of the clergy, and of those interested in Church Work, it will 
suggest to them strong reasons why the Church should not seek to be 
thus relieved, should be even positively unwilling to be thus relieved, 
should hasten to occupy the ground with Church Kindergartens. So 
fine and delicate a work, on the most plastic of all material, by the 
most personal of powers, seems greatly jeopardized by being made part 
of a cumbrous official system. It may hold its subtle spirit within this 
sphere, but there is great risk of an unconscious lowering of tone, an 
insensible evaporation of the spirit of the Kindergarten in the routine- 
working of its mechanism. Above all other branches of education it 
needs to be fed from the deepest springs of motive power, to be tided 
with a holy enthusiasm, to be made a real religious ministry. And 
because, with all its defects in other respects, the Church best supplies 
this spirit which is the vital essence of the Kindergarten, I hope to see 
it taken up by the churches. The nurture of early childhood is so pre- 
eminently the very task of the Church that I am persuaded she needs only 
to understand this blessed institution to claim it, as the development of 
that Spirit of Truth who is ever revealing to men, as they are able to 
bear them, the things needing to be done for the health of humanity, 
for the perfecting of the body of Christ. 

15. Providential Preparation of the Churches for Welcoming this Work. 
As I thus urge upon the careful consideration of my brethren of the 
clergy, of all branches of the Church of Christ, the claims to a promi- 
nent position in their Church Work of an institution that is only begin- 
ning to be seriously considered in this country, an institution which 
has upon its surface so little of that wherein many have been accus- 
tomed to find all Church Work, I am encouraged by the signs on every 
hand of the dawning of a day of reconciliation, wherein those who 
have stood apart in their opinions about Church Work are to find them- 
selves face to face. Protestantism has separated along two lines of 
work, drawn by two schools of thought. Some branches of Protestant- 
ism have based their work in the culture of Christian character upon 
the child experience of formation, having a strong sense of the organic 



THE FREE KINDERGARTEN IN CHURCH WORK. 729 

life of a holy humanity. Others have based their work in the culture 
of Christian character upon the adult experience of re-formation, hav- 
ing a strong sense of the organic life of a sinful humanity. 

Lutheranism, the Chui-ch of England and its American daughter the 
Protestant Episcopal Church have held to the idea of nurture, and have 
sought to grow normally from infancy the sons and daughters of The 
Almighty. They are learning, however, that with the best nurture 
there will be lapses, deep and wide ; that the children of the Heavenly 
Father may turn out prodigals, needing in the far-off land to say to 
themselves, " I will arise and go to my Father and will say unto him, 
Father, I have sinned." They are developing thus, alike in the Evan- 
gelical and Ritualistic wings, the revivalistic spirit and methods, so that 
a genuine Methodist or Baptist would feel quite at home in the " Gospel 
Meeting " or " The Mission." While thus drawing nigh to their sister 
churches in the after work of conversion, the churches of nurture 
ought to be ready to receive this system of child culture. 

Most of the- branches of Protestant Christianity have centered their 
work upon conversion, seeking to recreate the children of Adam into 
the sons and daughters of the Lord. Presbyterians, Congregational- 
ists, Methodists and Baptists are now remembering that under and 
back of the old Adam there was in every man, as man, the older Christ ; 
a spiritual nature, even though dormant, which could open, and should 
open, in every child into the sonship of God. They are thus feeling 
their way to sub-soil their needful work of conversion with the basic 
work of nurture ; and are seeking to grow the divine nature in child- 
hood before the devilish nature develops a mastery of the being. The 
Sunday School receives most attention in these denominations, and 
shows thus the conscious need of education as the first of church 
works. The dissatisfaction felt with it indicates the felt need of 
something more truly nurturing. They are more or less consciously 
groping, under the leadings of The Spirit of Truth, who is guiding men 
into all truth, in search of a system which will prove, what Dr. Bush- 
nell craved as the need of the churches, a true " Christian Nurture." 

And thus all branches of Protestantism ought to be able now to re- 
ceive this gospel of God's servant, Frederick Frobel, in their own tongue, 
and welcome it, and together walk in the steps of the true education 
towards that new earth into which, as written of old, " a little child 
shall lead them." 

16. This Theory Tested by Experience. 

It only remains to be added that this theory of the Kindergarten in 
Church Work has been submitted to the test of experiment, by the 
Church I have the privilege of serving, and that the result is a satisfac- 
tory verification of the theory. Three years ago the Anthon Memorial 
Church in New York opened its Free Kindergarten. A meeting of 
ladies was called and an address made by Miss Peabody, the venerable 
apostle of the Kindergarten in the United States, whose long life of 
noble service in the cause of education crowns its honored years with 



73t) THE FREE KINDEKGAETEN IN CHURCH WORK. 

the fine enthusiasm in which, at the age when most are content with 
rest, slie has consecrated herself to this gospel of the Christ Cliild. A 
simple organization was effected from among the ladies interested in 
the idea, under an energetic management. A subscription list was 
soon filled out warranting a year's experiment. Thanks to the counsel 
of the best authority, that of Mad. Kraus-Boelte, we were led to a most 
fortunate choice for our Kindergartner. Miss Mary L. Van Wagenen 
had cherished the idea of a Free Kindergartner for the poor, and 
brought to this venture that combination of qualities described above 
as essential to the true Kindergartner, which in her person has made 
this experiment so satisfactory a success. A number of young ladies 
volunteered to act as unpaid assistants. The Sunday-school room 
of the church was placed at the use of the Kindergarten Associa- 
tion, and so in due time the Kindergarten was opened. Since then it 
has been in session for eight months of each year, on five days of the 
week, from 9^ a. m. to 1 p. iwr. About seventy children have been kept 
on the roll, as many as can be well cared for by our force of assistants. 

The plan of volunteer assistants has not proven thoroughly success- 
ful, though we still have a few in attendance. It was only designed as 
a provisional supply. After the first year a training class for Kinder- 
gartners was opened, through which several of her amateur helj^ers 
have passed, some into the charge of new Kindergartens, and others 
into the position of qualified assistants in our own Kindergarten. It 
is our intention to salary such assistants, as we are able, and thus secure 
regular and skilled service. 

To further the physical culture of the Kindergarten a substantial 
dinner has been provided daily for the children, and out of door excur- 
sions made in suitable seasons. 

The mental influence on the children has been very marked. The 
brightness of their faces is an expression of the intellectual quickening 
that has taken place. Soms of the little ones have developed wonder- 
fully. Their moral growth has been no less marked. Some of the 
children seem literally re-made. And generally, in the charming spir- 
itual atmosphere of this Child Garden, there seem to be budding those 
" fruits of the spirit " which are '• love, joy, peace, gentleness, good- 
ness." The children are not saints by any means ; but they are grow- 
ing happily, joyously, and on the whole beautifully, and as fast as we 
dare expect. The best testimony to the influence of the work is the 
appreciation the poor mothers show of its effects. The children have 
even become missionaries of cleanliness, order and love, and a little 
child is leading many a household towards some better life. No start- 
ling results are sought. We are satisfied to trust the future with the 
harvest of this well used spring time. 

It has cost us about $1,000 a year, and we feel that it is a good in- 
vestment for Christ. Any church with this amount can plant the infant 
school of the future, and the American Frbbel Union will help it to a 
good Kindergartner. 



KINDEKGARTEN WORK IN CALIFORNIA. ^sj 



KINDERGARTEN FOR NEGLECTED CHILDREN. 

Address of Mrs. Sarah B. Cooper at the graduating exercises of the Pacific 
Kindergarten Training School, Tuesday evening, Sept. 14, 1880. 

When the old king demanded of the Spartans fifty of their children 
as hostages, they replied, " We would prefer to give you a hundred of 
our most distinguished men." This was but a fair testimony to the ever- 
lasting value of the child to any commonwealth and to any age. The 
hope of the world lies in the children. The hope of San Francisco's 
future lies in the little children that throng her streets to-day. Is it a 
small question, then, " What shall we do with our children?" It seems 
to me that the very best work that can be done for the world is work 
with the children. We talk a vast deal about the work of reclamation 
and restoration, reformatory institutions, and the like, and all this is well, 
but far better is it to besjin at the beginning. The best physicians are 
not those who follow disease alone, but those who, so far as possible, go 
ahead and prevent it. They seek to teach the community the laws of 
health — how not to get sick. We too often start out on the principle 
that actuated the medical tyro who was working might and main over a 
patient who was burning up witli fever. When gently entreated to know 
what he was doing, he snappishly replied: "Doing? I'm trying to throw 
him into a fit. I don't know much about curing fevers, but I'm death on 
fits. Just let me get him into a fit, and I'll fetch him." It seems to me 
we often go on the same principle — we work harder in laying plans to 
redeem those who have fallen than to save others from falling. We 
seem to take it for granted that a certain condition of declension must 
be reached before we can work to advantage. I repeat again what I have 
often said before — we do not begin soon enough Avith the children. It 
seems to me that both Church and State have yet to learn the vast import 
of those matchless words of the great Teacher Himself, where He said, 
pointing to a little child: "He that receiveth him in My name, receiveth 
Me." He said it because, with Omniscient vision. He saw the wondrous 
folded-away possibilities imprisoned within the little child. Again the 
great and good Teacher said: "Take heed that ye despise not one of 
these little ones, for I say unto you that in Heaven their angels do always 
behold the face of my Father which is in Heaven." And when I see the 
neglected, sad-faced, prematurely-old, weary-eyed little pnes in the pur- 
lieus of vice and crime, there is just one thought that comes like a ray of 
sunlight through these rifts of cloud, and it is this : There is not one of 
these uncombed, unwashed, untaught little pensioners of care that has 
not some kind angel heart that is pitying it in the heavens above. Parents 
may be harsh and brutal, communities may be cold and neglectful, but 
angels must regard them with eyes luminous with tender pity. 

What shall we do with these children? Good people everywhere 
should combine to care for them and teach them. Churches should make 
it an important part of their work to look after them. The State should 
look after them. The law of self-preservation, if no higher law, de- 
mands that they should be looked after. How shall they be looked after? 
We answer, by multiplying free Kindergartens in every destitute part of 
the city. With fifty or sixty free Kindergartens established in the most 
neglected districts, San Francisco would be a different city ten years 
hence. Said a wealthy tax -payer to me, in response to an appeal for a 
subscription to our Jackson-street work: "I give j'ou this most gladly. 
I consider it an investment for my children. I would rather give five 
dollars a month to educate these children than to have my own taxed ten 
times the amount by and by to sustain prisons and penitentiaries. " This 
was the practical view of a practical business man — a man of wise fore- 
thought and of generous impulses. 

The School Board of this city are entitled to the grateful consideration 



782 KINDERGARTEN WORK IN CALIFORNIA. 

of every thoughtful citizen for their action in accepting the class of five- 
year-old children at 116 Jackson street, as an experimental Kindergarten, 
connected with the Public School Department. Let anybody go and 
examine the work for themselves. It is a sad fact that between forty 
and fifty just such needy children have been turned back into the street, 
to learn all its vice and crime, who could not find accommodation in the 
Silver-street Kindergarten. I tell you this is a fact of momentous im- 
port to this community. Remember that from a single neglected 
child in a wealthy county in the State of New York, there has come a 
notorious stock of criminals, vagabonds, and paupers, imperiling every 
dollar's worth of property, and every individual in the community. Not 
less than one thousand two hundred persons have been traced as the 
lineage of six children, who were born of this one perverted and depraved 
woman, who was once a pure, sweet, dimpled little child, and who, with 
proper influences thrown about her, at a tender age, might have given to 
the world twelve hundred progeny who would have blest their day and 
generation. Look at the tremendous fact involved! In neglecting to 
train this one child to ways of virtue and well-doing, the descendants of 
the respectable neighbors of that child have been compelled to endure 
the depredations, and support in alms-houses and prisons scores of her 
descendants for six generations. If the citizens of San Francisco would 
protect the virtue of their children, their persons from murder, their 
property from theft, or their wealth from consuming tax to support pau- 
pers and criminals, they must provide a scheme of education that will 
not allow a single youth to escape its influence. And to effect the surest 
and best results these children must be reached just as early in life as 
possible. The whole effect of the Kindergarten system tends to prevent 
crime. And what estimate shall be placed upon an instrumentality 
which saves the child from becoming a criminal, and thus not only saves 
the State from care and expense incident to such reform, but also secures 
to the State all that which the life of a good citizen brings to it. Think 
of the vast difference in results had there been 1,200 useful, well equipped 
men and women at work in that county in New York, building it up in 
productive industries, instead of 1,200 paupers and criminals tearing 
down and defiling the fair heritage! We have but to look at this signifi- 
cant fact to estimate the value of a single child to the commonwealth. 

The true Kindergartner proceeds upon the principle asserted by Froebel, 
that every child is a child of Nature, a child of man, and a child of God, 
and that education can only fulfill its mission when it views the human 
being in this three-fold relation and takes each into account. In other 
words, the true Kindergartner regards with scrupulous care the physical, 
the intellectual, the moral. "You can not," says Froebel, "do heroic 
deeds in words, or by talking about them ; but. you can educate a child 
to self-activity and to well-doing, and through these to a faith which will 
not be dead." The child in the Kindergarten is not only told to be good, 
but inspired by help and sympathy to be good. The Kindergarten child 
is taught to manifest his love in deeds rather than words, and a child 
thus taught never knows lip-service, but is led forward to that higher 
form of service where his good works glorify the Father, thus proving 
Froebel's assertion to be true, where he says : "I have based my educa- 
tion on religion, and it must lead to religion." We seem to forget that 
the moral powers, like the physical and mental, can only be strengthened 
by exercise. What the world most needs to-day is to bring more of the 
true Sabbath into the week-day — in individual life, in family life, in social 
life, in business life, and in national life. The school should cultivate 
with equal skill the perceptive and the reflective faculties, the intellect, 
and the conscience. All training should tend to repress the lower nature 
and arouse the higher. It should regulate the animal forces so that they 
should minister to the spiritual, thus becoming the faithful servitors of 
all that is highest and noblest within the little child. 

And this is the mission of every true Kindergartner. This is to be 



KINDERGARTEN WORK IN CALIFORNIA. ';^33 

your mission, my dear young ladies — you who go forth to practice and 
teach the principles of your Master Froebel. Like him, you must love 
the little ones whom you seek to unfold. Like him, you must wrap a 
warm heart of love about them, and love them into goodness. Are you 
ready for the work? It means much of toil and self-sacrifice; it means 
much of patience and care; it means much of weariness and discourage- 
ment ; it means much of self-renunciation and self-conquest. One must 
be as patient as Penelope at her web, and as tender as true motherhood, 
to evoke the good and check the bad in these little neglected pensioners 
of po'^erty and want. There must be a magnetic attractiveness that 
charms while it compels. There must be a deep-sighted sympathy, which 
is wiser than all blame, and more potent than all reproof. There must 
be an abiding faith in the loving care of an Almighty Friend, in whose 
help and strength the patient toiler goes forward, day by day, feeling 
that, after all, the richest reward of such a life is to live it. 

I wish every Christian philanthropist in the city would move toward 
the care and training of these luckless little children. I wish* every 
church in San Francisco would establish and carry forward one free 
Kindergarten. There need then be no restraint in regard to foundation- 
work in moral and religious training — not necessarily sectarian training, 
but good, sound, fundamental Christian training. There could then be 
thousands of these little waifs under daily instruction; kept from the 
pernicious influences of the streets, and taught all that is good and true 
and pure and right and kind and noble. They could be taught industry 
and order and neatness. They could be taught reverence and self-respect. 
They could be taught in the midst of poverty and struggle to put their 
trust in a Heavenly Friend, who with unspeakable tenderness said: 
" Suffer the little children to come unto Me." 

Could Christian philanthropy devise a better or more promising work 
than this? It reaches down to the very foundations upon which true 
character may be built. It is full of promise and fruition of hope and 
reward. It is a work that appeals to parentage. When fathers and 
mothers see the faces of their own darlings radiant with unalloyed hap- 
piness, would it not be well to turn a tender thought on these luckless 
little ones, left in the world with none to call them by dear names, and 
none to be thoughtful of their pressing wants, with nothing to relieve 
the sad monotony of the days and weeks and months of their spare and 
scanty lot. I have an idea that in proportion as we seek to bless these 
hapless children we may expect blessing upon our own. That in propor- 
tion as we give to these children we keep for our own. Verily, it is so. 

"Then whispered the Angel of Mothers 
To the g^iver, in tenderest tone, 
' In blessing the children of others 
You are garnering joys for your own.' " 



THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN. 

Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers. 

Ere the sorrow comes Avith years? 
They are leaning their young heads against their mother's. 

And that cannot stop their tears. 
The young lambs are bleating in the meadows, 

The young birds are chirping in the nest. 
The young fawns are playing with the shadows, 

The young flowers are blowing toward the west, — 
But the young, young children, O my brothers, 

They are weeping bitterly! 
They are weeping in the playtime of the others, 

In the country of the free. — Mrs. Elisabeth Barrett Browning. 



734 KINDEBGARTEN FOR NEGLECTED CHILDREN. 

The following Notes on Charity and Pai'ochial Kindergartens, and 
those connected with public schools, with charitable institutions and 
institutions for defective classes, were communicated by General Eaton, 
Commissioner of Ed., in response to application for latest information. 

In California, the first Charity Kindergarten of San Francisco, Cali- 
fornia, Miss Katharine D. Smith, conductor, was established on Silver 
Street, in 1878. . This kindergarten is an organization of the Public 
Kindei-garten Society of which Miss Marwedel is an officer, antl is a 
marvel of systematic discipline. The young ladies of the High School 
Normal class are sent to this school — one or two daily — to learn the 
elements of Kiudergartning and assist in teaching, which is supple- 
mental to a course of. lectures on the subject, delivered by Miss Smith. 

The Silver street work has given birth and inspiration to the Jackson 
S/reet Charity Kindergarten, which is now under the immediate care of 
Miss Mary Kilbridge (who succeeded Miss Reed in March, 1880), as- 
sisted by the young ladies of Mrs. S. N. Cooper's Bible class. 

The Jackson Street Kindergarten, established in the very heart of 
the Barbary Coast by a number of Presbyterian ladies belonging to 
the Calvary Church, has had over one year of successful, earnest work 
among the neglected children of that locality, and has aroused intelli- 
gent interest and warm-hearted sympathy among our citizens. 

About the time of the establishment of the work on Jackson street, 
another Charity School was organized at No. 56 First street (Mrs. 
Philips, conductor) under the auspices of the Young Women's Chris- 
tian Association. The results have been beneficial beyond all estimate. 
In addition to these three Kindergartens Miss Marwedel reported in 
October, 1830, the names of the following : 

Minnie Street Free Charily Kindergarten (]\Iiss Lizzie Master). 

Shippl'^ Street Free Charity Kindergarten (Mrs. M. Loyd). 

Free Presbyterian Church Kindergarten at Oakland. 

The School Board of San Francisco established in 1880, an "experi- 
mental Kindergarten " on J[ackson street, being the first free public 
Kindergarten in the city, under Miss Flora Van dem Burgh. Miss 
Marwedel writes, " the establishment of one public Kindergarten with 
the view of having Kindergartens connected with all public schools is 
accepted with great favor." 

Kindergarten instruction has also been given in the Little Sisters' 
Infant Shelter at San Francisco, and in the Institution for the Deaf and 
Dumb at Berkeley. 

In Illinois the Chicago Charity Kindergarten, a memorial work of 
Mrs. Blatchford, is an outgrowth of the work of the Mothers' Class, 
held two years ago by Mrs. Putnum. The Kindergarten occupies two 
large adjoining rooms in the basement of Mr. Moody's church, and is 
conducted by S. E. Walker. Some Kindergarten work in the Parish 
school in Danville was begun in 1880. 

In Detroit, Michigan, a Charity Kindergarten was established in the 
Brock way Mission School in 1880. 

In Beatrice, Nebraska, a Charity Kindergarten exists in connection 
with Christ Church. ^ 

In Cincinnati, Ohio, a free Kindergarten was opened in Front street 
by jNliss S. A. Shawk, a pupil of Miss Blow, under the auspices of an 
association of ladies, of which Mrs. Alphonso Tafft is president. Kin- 
dergarten training is also established in the Cincinnati Orphan Asylum. 

In Cleveland, Ohio, a Charity Kindergarten was opened under the 
auspices of the Young Ladies' Temperance League, but the association 
failing to furnish the funds, Mrs. A. B. Ogden has assumed the direc- 
tion and expense. 



CHARITY KINDERGAETEN. 735 

In Columbus, Ohio, Kindergartens exist in the Home of the Friendless; 
in the State Institution for the Blind, and the State Institution for Deaf 
Mutes, and in the New Orphans' Home. 

In Charleston, South Carolina, the City Orphan House has adopted the 
Froebel material and method with the little children. 

In the District of Columbia a Free Kindergarten was opened in the chapel 
ot the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, and is supported by con- 
tributions from members of that church, and the E Street Baptist Church, 
The Froebelian material and method have been introduced into the 
District Industrial School located in Georgetown. 

In Philadelphia the Charity Kindergarten movement has been extended, 
wUh some aid in room rent free from the city, and in connection with its 
City Orphan House. 

Training Classes for Colored Teachers* 

" I hope you will reserve a place for at least a brief notice of the suc- 
cessful efforts in this city to put the Kindergarten method into the hands 
erf the colored people. 

"The leading spirit here w,as Miss Young Jackson, the gifted and 
leaj'ned principal of the Brainbridge Street School, who exhibited, in 
some tentative efforts, a complete comprehension of the principles of the 
system. She was encouraged by Miss Vankirk, the oldest and most suc- 
cessful Kindergartner in Philadelphia, who took as pupils four of Miss 
Jackson's pupils and trained them in the theory and manipulations, and 
last fall set them at work; and, since Christmas, each couple has had a 
Kindergarten of twenty children under Miss Vankirk's general super- 
vision. I have visited both, and I have never seen better examples of 
order, knowledge and use of words, and spontaneous work done by the 
children. On the 30th of April I attended the graduating exercises of 
the pupil Kindergartners, which were higlily creditable, and the perform- 
ances of the little children at their tables and in the movement plays 
directed by their own singing were admirable. 

"But what I came to Philadelphia at this time purposely to do was to 
give my blessing to another training class of colored women who have 
been under the training of Mrs. Guion Gourlay. Four of these are grad- 
uates of Miss Jackson's school, and four are married women, and they 
have all been taught for these past seven months without money and 
without price, by Mrs. Gourlay, who feels as I do about their natural 
aptitude, and whose great sj^mpathy with them (inherited, she says, in 
part from an earnest anti-slavery ancestor) inspires her with a desire to 
quicken in them a sense of the special work assigned to them as factors 
in the civilization of humanity, and especially as citizens of this country. 

"I will not deform my page with an account in detail of the ungenerous 
opposition she has met with; and the bin Irances cast in her way by per- 
sons who should have aided her, though it would put into strong relief 
her own noble perseverence in her generous purpose. Through a cor- 
respondence I have had with her since last September I have known 

* Extracts from letter of Miss Peabodt to Editor of Volume of Kindergarten Papers. 



1^3^ CHAKITT KINDERGARTEN IN PHILADELPHIA, 

of her untiring labors. In her prospectus she said that whoever could 
not afford the fee must tell her and she would accommodate her price to 
their necessities; and when it came to the explanation, not any of them 
could afford to pay anything; but she would not let any one go who 
desired to learn. She has even, out of her own purse, provided the 
materials in many instances. I have generally heard from her after 
every lesson given, many of which lasted three or four hours. One of 
the life members of our union made them all members of the American 
Proebel Union for this year. They will graduate on the 21st of May, 
and I will enclose to you the programme of the exercises, all of which I 
have read, and also their examination papers; and from the beginning 
she has sent to me their abstracts. 

"I trust it will prove but the beginning of a general movement among 
these people. Froebel's education is not merely of the children, but of 
their adult care-takers. His living with cliildren is the practical rendering 
of Christ's precept to become as little children themselves. In short, it 
is mutual education — self-development. The exchange is an equal on^, 
if it is not even more for the adult than the child. The adult gives the 
child only the love of time, space, and the language which represents 
this love, and symbolizes the higher spiritual truths which the children 
give to them, when they are wise enough to divine the scope and mean- 
ing of those spontaneous activities which embody mutual laws, and are 
alike in all children, giving' a plane for the play of sociality. The advan- 
tage that the temperament of the colored classes serve, is in the pre- 
dominence of their aesthetic sensibility over the mere force of will. 
They are more in the natural equipoise of childhood, and in the case of 
their hearts take in broader impression and more various impressions 
before they begin to react. But this, in the long run, is an advantage if 
education comes in to give the opposite, directing their energies to active 
production of forms as expression, since production of form defines 
thought, and puts substance before words in their consciousness. I 
remember when I first heard the Hampton singers what an impression 
was made on me by their original music, what a revelation it was to me 
of the truth that "man's extremity is God's opportunity," and that, in 
the future interchange of their spiritual knowledge with the proud Anglo- 
Saxon's knowledge of this world's law, and even of that necessary cor- 
relation of cosmic forces which we call the material universe, they have 
the advantage. But I am getting in too deep waters, and will close by 
sending you the programme of the closing exercises of Mrs. Gourlay's 
class, which pioneers the good time coming when both races shall be 
seen to be only opposite factors of an harmonized humanity." 

The Eureka Class of Kindergartners, under training since November 
3, 1880, by Mrs. Guion Gourlay, had their closing exercises at Weskly 
Hall, on .Saturday, May 21, 1881. Each of the nine members read a very 
creditable essay on topics suggested by their studies, and the work on 
which they were about to enter, and received a diploma from Misa 
Peabody, President of the American Froebel Union. 



EARLY TRAINING. 

APHORISMS AND SUGGESTIONS — ANCIENT AND MODERK. 



We are physiologically connected and set forth in our beginnings, and 
it is a matter of immense consequence to our character, what the connec- 
tion is. In our birth we not only begin to breathe and circulate blood, 
but it is a question hugely significant whose the blood may be. For in 
this we have whole rivers of predispositions, good or bad, set running in 
us — as much more powerful to shape our future than all tuitional and 
regulative influences that come after, as they are earlier in their begin- 
ning, deeper in their insertion, and more constant in their operation. 

Here, then, is the real and true beginning of a godly nurture. The 
child is not to have the sad entail of any sensuality, or excess, or distem- 
pered passion upon him. The heritage of love, peace, order, continence 
and holy courage is to be his. He is not to be morally weakened before- 
hand, in the womb of folly, by the frivolous, worldly, ambitious, expec- 
tations of parents-to-be, concentrating all their nonsense in him. His 
affinities are to be raised by the godly expectations, rather, and prayers 
that go before ; by the steady and good aims of their industry, by the 
great impulse of their faith, by the brightness of their hope, by the sweet 
continence of their religiously pure love in Christ. Born, thus, of a pa- 
rentage that is ordered in all righteousness, and maintains the right use 
of every thing, especially the right use of nature and marriage, the child 
will have just so much of heaven's life and order in him beforehand, as 
have become fixed properties in the type of his parentage. 

Observe how very c[uick the child's eye is, in the passive age of in- 
fancy, to catch impressions, and receive the meaning of looks, voices, and 
motions. It peruses all faces, and colors, and sounds. Every sentiment 
that looks into its eyes, looks back out of its eyes, and plays in miniature 
on its countenance. The tear that steals down the cheek of a mother's 
suppressed grief, gathers the little infantile face into a responsive sob. 
With a kind of wondering silence, which is next thing to adoration, 
it studies the mother in her prayer, and looks up piously with her, in 
that exploring watch, that signifies unspoken prayer. If the child is 
handled fretfully, scolded, jerked, or simply laid aside unaffectionately, 
in no warmth of motherly gentleness, it feels the sting of just that which 
is felt towards it ; and so it is angered by anger, irritated by irritation, 
fretted by fretfulness ; having thus impressed, just that kind of impa- 
tience or ill-nature, which is felt towards it, and growing faithfully into 
47 



(738 EARLY TRAININO. 

the bad mold offered, as by a fixed law. There is great importance, in 
this manner, even in the handling of infancy. If it is unchristian, it will 
beget unchristian states, or impressions. If it is gentle, ever patient and 
loving, it prepares a mood and temper like its own. There is scarcely 
room to doubt, that all most crabbed, hateful, resentful, passionate, ill- 
natured characters ; all most even, lovely, firm and true, are prepared, in 
a great degree, by the handling of the nursery. To these and all such 
modes of feeling and treatment as make up the element of the infant's 
life, it is passive as wax to the seal. So that if we consider how small a 
speck, falling into the nucleus of a crystal, may disturb its form ; or, how 
even a mote of foreign matter present in the quickening egg, will suffice 
to produce a deformity ; considering, also, on the other hand, what nice 
conditions of repose, in one case, and what accurately modulated sup- 
plies of heat in the other, are necessary to a perfect product ; then only 
do we begin to imagine what work is going on, in the soul of a child, in 
this first chapter of life, the age of impressions. 

I have no scales to measure quantities of effect in this matter of early 
training, but I may be allowed to express my solemn conviction, that 
more, as a general fact, is done, or lost by neglect of doing, on a child's 
immortality, in the first three years of his life, than in all his years of 
discipline afterwards. And I name this particular time, or date, that I 
may not be supposed to lay the chief stress of duty and care on the latter 
part of what I have called the age of impressions ; which, as it is a mat- 
ter somewhat indefinite, may be taken to cover the space of three or four 
times this number of years ; the development of language, and of moral 
ideas being only partially accomplished, in most cases, for so long a time. 
Let every Christian father and mother understand, when their child is 
three years old, that they have done more than half of all they will ever 
do for his character. What can be more strangely wide of all just appre- 
hension, than the immense efficacy, imputed by most parents to the Chris- 
tian ministry, compared with what they take to be the almost insignifi- 
cant power conferred on them in their parental charge and duties. Why, 
if all preachers of Christ could have their hearers, for whole months and 
years, in their own will, as parents do their children, so as to move them 
by a look, a motion, a smile, a frown, and act their own sentiments and 
emotions over in them at pleasure ; if, also, a little farther on, they had 
them in authority to command, direct, tell them whither to go, what to 
learn, what to do, regulate their hours, +heir books, their pleasures, their 
company, and call them to prayer over their own knees every night and 
morning, who could think it impossible, in the use of such a power, to 
produce almost any result ? Should not such a ministry be expected to 
fashion all who come under it to newness of life? Let no parent, shift- 
ing off his duties to his children, in this manner, think to have his defects 
made up, and the consequent damages mended afterwards, when they 
have come to their maturity, by the comparatively slender, always doubt. 
ful, efficacy of preaching and pulpit harangue. 

Dr. Bushnell. Christian Nurture. 



CARE OF THE BODY, &C. 739 

As we prepare in good weather whatever will be needed in a storm, so 
in youth must we lay up orderly habits and moderation, as savings against 
time of age. 

Children should be led to industry in useful learning by persuasion and 
admonition ; but never by blows and disgraceful treatment. 

Bat such things only make them disinclined to effort and disgust them 
with their labor. 

Blame and praise should be used alternately ; but care should con- 
stantly be taken that the former does not discourage, and that the latter 
does not render over-confident and careless. 

As a plant is nourished by moderate watering, but is drowned by too 
much, so are the mental powers of children strengthened by labors 
judiciously imposed, but are destroyed by excessive tasks. 

Children should never be refused their necessary recreation ; it should 
be remembered that nature has divided our whole lives into labor and 
recreation. 

Thus we slacken the strings of the bow and the lyre, that we may be 
able to tighten them again. 

Children must also be accustomed not to live effeminately, to restrain 
their tongues, and to overcome their anger. 

Yet fathers should remember their own youth, and should not judge 
too harshl}'^ the transgressions of their sons. 

As physicians mingle bitter drugs with sweet confections, and thus 
make what is agreeable a means of administering to the patient what is 
healthful, so should fiithers unite the severity of their punishments with 
kindness ; should sometimes give the reins to the impulses of their sons, 
and sometimes check them ; should be forbearing to a mere error, and 
even if they suffer themselves to become angry, should recover again 
from it. 

It is often well to pretend not to have observed some action of children. 

AVhen we overlook the feiults of our friends, should we not sometimes 
do the same for those of our children? 

Children should be taught to be communicative and open ; to avoid all 
that savors of secrecy, which tends to lead them away from uprightness, 
and to accustom them to wrong. 

The understanding is not a vessel, that needs filling •, it is fuel, that 
needs kindling. It is kindled to truth by the faculty of acquiring knowl- 
edge, and by love. 

He who listens to the speech of another without kindling his understand- 
ing at it, as at a light, but contents himself with merely hearing, is like 
one who goes to a neighbor for fire, but only sits still there and warms 
himself 

He only receives an appearance of wisdom, like the red color from the 
shilling of a flame ; but the inner rust of his soul is not heated; nor is its 
darkness driven away. Plutarch. 

He who disciplmes his body is healthy and strong, and many persons 
have thus rescued their lives from danger, served their friends, been use- 
ful to their country, gained fame and glory, and lived a happy life. 

The body becomes accustomed to whatever occupation is pursued ; and 
accordingly it should be trained to the best exercises. 

Forgetfulness, despondency, ill temper and even frenzy, often assail the 
mind, in consequence of neglect of bodily discipline, with so much power, 
as even to cause the loss of what knowledge is already gained. 

Socrates. 

As the power of speech is easily misused, so are gymnastics ; for supe- 
riority in bodily exercises can easily be abused to the injury of others. 



1^40 CARE OF THE BODY, &0. 

Beginning with the third year, when the intelligence and the power of 
speech awake, the child should be occupied with plays appropriate to its 
age. From these plays a judgment may be formed of the child's adapted- 
ness to a future calling. 

Changes of toys should not be made too rapidly, for fear of developing 
instability of character. 

Fiom the third to the sixth year, suitable stories should be told the 
child ; and these should be such as to furnish him with ideas of God and 
of virtue. 

Parents and teachers must seek occasion of securing and maintaining 
influence over children by means of personal respect. 

Bodily punishment is only admissible where children or pupils violate 
the respect due to age, or a law of education. 

On the other hand, the sense of shame and of honor should early be 
awakened. 

Parents should be more anxious to instill into their children a deep- 
seated youthful modesty, than to leave them a pile of gold : and therefore 
they should carefully keep from the sight of the young all that can injure 
their modesty or morals. 

For where the old are immodest, the shamelessness of the young is 
increased. Plato. 

To the mother belongs the bodily nourishment and care of children ; 
to the father, their instruction and education. 

The distinction of sexes must early be observed. 

Milk is the most natural and therefore the best food for children. Wine 
injures them by heating them and causing sickness. 

Even children at the breast should be accustomed to suitable exercise. 
Children should early be accustomed to heat and cold, to confirm their 
health ; and all habits should be taught from as early an age as possible. 

Children should not be obliged to do actual labor, nor to be instructed, 
before the fifth year, for fear of stunting them. 

The loud crying of children — unless it is caused by sickness — is their 
first gymnastic exercise. 

Their plays should be in the similitude of what they are afterwards to 
practice in earnest. Akistotle. 

Since children are always possessed of great Hveliness and susceptibil-- 
ity, since their powers of observation grow keener and stronger as their 
consciousness develops, and their impulses to activity are stronger in pro- 
portion as their character is nobler, therefore proportionately greater care 
should be taken to preserve them from immoral influences, to protect and 
direct the growth of the mind, and to accustom them to proper modes of 
speech. 

Parents and teachers should show to their children and pupils a truly 
virtuous example ; and punishments should be proportioned to faults, and 
should be so administered as to produce improvement. 

Although the virtues of good nature, mildness and placability are high 
ones, still they must have their limits ; and must not interfere with the 
strictness necessary to maintain the laws. 

Man must early be trained to the conviction that the gods are the di- 
rectors of all things, and that they see the inmost thoughts of men. 

It is only by this means that men will be preserved from foolish pre- 
sumption and from wickedness, as Thales says : That men must live in 
the consciousness that all around them is filled with the gods. This will 
keep them more chaste than if they were in the holiest of temples. 

From religion, which is a holy fear of the gods, proceed the virtues of 
modesty, and filial piety. 



CARE OF THE BODY, &c. ij ^l 

The peculiar traits of each character should be developed ; it should 
not be attempted to impress a foreign mark upon them ; just actois are 
wont to select not the best parts, but those most suitable to them. 

, It should not be claimed that there is no art or science of training up 
to virtue. Remember how absurd it would be to believe that even the 
most trifling employment has its rules and methods, and at the same time 
that the highest of all departments of human effort — virtue — can be mas- 
tered without instruction and practice. Ciceko. 

The education of children should begin at their birth. 

Bathing children and letting them crawl about are to be recommended. 

We came into the world entirely ignorant, and with incapable bodies, 
but with the capacity to learn. 

Man learns incredibly much in the first years of his life, by mere expe- 
rience, without any instruction at all. 

Impressions on the senses supply the first materials of knowledge. 
Therefore it will be well to present these impressions in a proper ordei'. Es- 
pecially should the results of seeing be compared with those of feeling. 

By motion they learn the idea of space, so that they no longer grasp 
after distant objects. 

Children speak at first a universal natural language, not articulated, but 
accented and intelligible. 

Nui'ses understand this language better than others, and talk to the 
children in it. 

What words are used in it are indifferent ; it is only the accent which 
is important. 

It is assisted also by the children's gestures and the rapid play of their 
features. 

Crying is their expression for hunger, heat, cold, &c. 

Their grown up guardians endeavor to understand this crying and to 
stop it ; but often misunderstand it, and try to stop it by flattery or blows. 

The first crying of children is a request. 

If this is not attended to, they proceed to commanding. 

They begin by helping themselves, and end by causing themselves to be 
waited on. 

All the bad conduct of children arises from weakness. 

If they are made strong, they will be good. 

One who can do all things, will never do anything evil. 

Before we come to our understandings, there is no morality in our 
actions ; although we sometimes see manifestations of it in the suscepti- 
bilities of children to the actions of others. 

The tendencies of children to destructiveness are not the result of 
wickedness, but of vivid impulses to activity. 

Children should be helped when it is necessary ; but no notice should 
be taken of their mere notions ; and they should be made to help them- 
selves as much as possible. 

Causeless crying will be best cured by taking no notice of it. For 
even children dislike to exert themselves for nothing. 

Crying can be soothed by drawing the child's attention to some strik- 
ing object, without letting it know that you are paying it any special 
attention. 

Costly playthings are superfluous. Cheap and simple ones are pre- 
cisely as good. 

Nurses can entertain children very much by telling them stories. 

Some few easily pronounced words should be often pronounced to the 
child, names of things which should be shown to them at the same time. 

Rousseau. 



H^2 EARLY TRAINING 

The youhgest children should be instructed in things visible. 

Upon such, pictures make the deepest impression. 

Examples are for them ; and precept ; but not abstract rules. 

The teacher should not be too much of a genius. 

Or if he is, let him learn patience. 

It is not always the pupils who understand quickest who are the best. 

The sloth of pupils must be compensated by the teacher's industry. 

Beo-inners must work slowly; and then faster and faster, as they 
advance. 

Learning will be pleasant to the pupils, if their teachers treat them in 
a friendly and suitable manner ; show them the object of their work ; do 
not merely listen to them but join in working with them and converse 
with them ; and if sufficient variety is afforded. 

It is especially important that the pupils should themselves be made to 
teach ; Fortius says, that he learned much from his teachers, more from 
his fellow-pupils, and most from his scholars. 

The school is a manufactoi-y of humanity. 

The art of training up men is not a superficial one, but one of the pro- 
foundest secrets of nature and of our salvation. Comenius. 

Be careful of your children and of their management. As soon as they 
begin to creep about and to walk, do not let them be idle. 

Young people must have something to do, and it is impossible for them 
to be idle. 

Their bodies must be kept in constant activity ; for the mind is not yet 
able to perform its complete functions. 

But in order that they may not occupy themselves in vicious or wicked 
ways, give them fixed hours for relaxation ; and keep them all the rest of 
the time, as far as possible, at study or at work, even if of trifling useful- 
ness, or not gainful to you. 

It is sufficient profit if they are thus kept from having an opportunity 
for evil thoughts or words. 

Therefore it is that children are nowhere better situated than at school 
or at church. Moscherosch. 

Domestic government is the first of all ; from which all governments 
and dominions take their origin. 

If this root is not good, there can be neither good stem nor good fruit 
from it. 

Kingdoms, moreover, are made up of single families. 

Where fathers and mothers govern all at home and let their children's 
obstinacy prevail, neither city, market, village, country, principality nor 
kingdom can be governed well and peacefully. Luther. 

Doctor Martin Luther wrote to his son as follows : Grace and peace in 
Christ, my dear little son. I see with pleasure that you learn well and 
pray constantly. Continue to do so, my son. When I come home, I will 
bring you a beautiful present. 

I saw a beautiful pleasant garden, where many children were walking, 
with golden clothes, and eating beautiful apples under the trees, and 
pears and cherries and plums, and were singing and jumping and enjoying 
themselves ; and they had beautiful little ponies with golden bridles and 
silver saddles. 

Then I asked the man who owned the garden, what children these 
were. And he said, "These are the children who pray willingly, learn 
well and are good." 

Then I said, "Dear man, I also have a son, called Hanschen Luther. 
May he not also come into the garden, so that he can eat such beautiful 



EARLY TRAINING. 743 

apples and pears, and ride such pretty ponies, and play with these chil- 
dren?" 

Then the man said, " If he prays willingly, and learns well and is 
good, then he may come into the garden, and Lippus and Jost too ; and 
if they all come, they shall have fifes and drums and singing and all sorts 
of stringed instruments, and dance and shoot with little cross-bows." 

And he showed me an open meadow in the garden, arranged for dan- 
cing ; and there were hanging up many golden fifes and drums and silver 
cross-bows. 

But this was quite early, and the children had not dined ; so that I 
could not wait to see the dancing. So I said to the man, "Ah, my dear 
sir ; I will go at once and write all this to my dear little son Han'schen, so 
that he shall pray constantly and learn well and be diligent, so that he 
also may come into the garden ; but he has an aunt Lehne, whom he must 
bring with him." 

Then the man said, " It shall be so ; go and write so to him." 

Therefore, dear little son Hanschen, learn and pray with good courage, 
and tell Lippus and Jost also, so that they may pray and learn also, and 
then j^ou can all thi-ee be admitted into the garden. 

And now you are commended to the Almighty God. And greet aunt 
Lehne ; and give her a kiss for me. Luthek. 

As birds are born with the power of flying, horses with that of run- 
ning, and beasts of prey with a furious courage, so is man born with the 
peculiar faculty of thinking, and of mental activity. 

Therefore do we ascribe to the soul a heavenly origin. 

Defective and under-witted minds, mental abortions and monstrosities, 
are as rare as bodily deformities. 

Not one individual can be found who can not by labor be brought to be 
good for something. 

Any one who considers this will as soon as he has children devote the 
utmost care to them. Quintilian. 

The symptoms of children's inclinations are so slight and obscure, and 
the promises so uncertain and fallacious, that it is very hard to establish 
any solid judgment or conjecture upon them. 

A tutor should have rather an elegant than a learned head, though both, 
if such a person can be found ; but, however, manners and judgment 
should be preferred before reading. 

'Tis the custom of schoolmasters to be eternally thundering in their 
pupils' ears, as they were pouring into a funnel. Now I would have a 
tutor to correct this error, and that, at the very first outset, he should, 
according to the capacity he has to deal with, put it to the test, permitting 
his pupil himself to taste and relish things, and of himself to choose and 
discern them, sometimes opening the way to him, and sometimes making 
him break the ice himself 

Socrates, and sinde him, Arcesilaus, made first their scholars speak, 
and then spoke to them. 

'Tis the effect of a strong and well-tempered mind to know how to 
condescend to his pupil's puerile notions and to govern and direct them. 

Let the master not only examine him about the bare words of his les- 
son, but also as to the sense and meaning of them, and let him judge of 
the profit he has made, not by the testimony of his memory, but by that 
of his understanding. 

Let him make him put what he hath learned into a hundred several 
forms, and accommodate it to so many several subjects, to see if he yet 
rightly comprehend it, and has made it his own. _ 'Tis a sign of crudity 
and indigestion, to throw up what we have eaten in the same condition it 



'J- 44 EARLY TRAINING. 

was swallowed down ; the stomach has not performed its office, unless it 
hath altered the form and condition of what was committed to it to concoct. 

Our minds work only upon trust, being bound and compelled to follow 
the appetite of another's ftmcy ; enslaved and captive under the authority 
of another's instruction, we have been so subjected to the trammel that 
we have no free nor natural pace of our own. 

Let the tutor make his pupil examine and thoroughly sift everything he 
reads, and lodge nothing in his head upon simple authority and upon trust. 

Bees cull their several sweets from this flower and that blossom, here 
and there where they find them, but themselves after make the honey, 
which is all and purely their own, and no longer thyme and marjoram. 

So the several fragments the pupil borrows from others he will trans- 
form and blend together to compile a work that shall be absolutely his 
own. 

To know by rote is no knowledge. 

Our pedagogues stick sentences full feathered in our memories, and 
there establish them like oracles, of which the very letters and syllables 
are the substance of the thing. 

I could wish to know whether a dancing-master could have taught us 
to cut capers by only seeing them do it as these men pretend to inform 
our understandings, without ever setting them to work, and to make us 
judge and speak well, without exercising us in judging and speaking. 

'Tis the general opinion of all, that children should not be brought up 
in their parents' lap. Their natural affection is apt to make the most 
discreet of them over-fond. 

It is not enough to fortify a child's soul, you are also to make his 
sinews strong ; for the soul will be oppressed, if not assisted by the body. 

A boy must be broken in by the pain and hardship of severe exercise, 
to enable him to the pain and hardship of dislocations, colics, and 
cauteries. 

Let conscience and virtue be eminently manifested in the pupil's speech. 
Make him understand that to acknowledge the error he shall discover in 
his own argument, though only found out by himself, is an effect of judg- 
ment and sincerity, which are the principal things he is to seek after, and 
that obstinacy and contention are common qualities, most appearing in 
and best becoming a mean soul. 

Let him examine every man's talent ; and something will be picked out 
of their discourse, whereof some use may be made at one time or another. 
By observing the graces and manners of all he sees, he will create to him- 
self an emulation of the good, and a contempt of the bad. 

Let an honest curiosity be planted in him to enquire after everj'' thing, 
and whatever there is of rare and singular near the place where he shall 
reside, let him go and see it. 

Methinks the first doctrine with which one should season his under- 
standing, ought to be that which regulates his manners and his sense ; 
that teaches him to know himself, and how both well to die and well to 
live. 

How many have I seen in my time, totally brutified by an immoderate 
thirst after knowledge ! 

Our very exercises and recreations, running, wrestling, music, dancing, 
hunting, riding, and fencing, will prove to be a good part of our study. 

I would have the outward behavior and mien, and the disposition of the 
limbs, formed at the same time with the mind. 

It is not a soul, it is not a body, that we are training up ; it is a man, 
and we ought not to divide him into two parts ; and, as Plato say.s, we are 
not to fashion one without the other, but make them draw together like 
two horses harnessed to a coach. 



DR. CHANNING— FILIAL DUTY. 745 



FILIAL RESPECT, GRATITUDE, AND CONFIDENCE. 

1. You are required to view and treat your parents with respect. Your tender, 
inexperienced ap:e requires that you tliinlc of yourselves with humility, and con- 
duct yourselves with modesty ; that you respect the superior age, and wisdom, 
and improvements of your parents, and observe toward them a submissive de- 
portment. Nothing is more unbecoming in you, nothing will render you more 
unpleasant in the eyes of others, than froward or contemptuous conduct toward 
your parents. There are children, and I wish I could say there are only a few, 
who speak to their parents with rudeness, grow sullen at their rebulves, behave 
in their presence as if they deserved no attention, hear them speak without no- 
ticing them, and rather ridicule tlian honor them. There are many children at 
the present day who think more higldy of themselves than of their elders; who 
think that their own wishes are flrst to be gratified ; who abuse the condescen- 
sion and kindness of their parents, and treat them as servants rather than 
superiors. Beware, my young friends, lest you grow up with this assuming and 
selfish spirit. Regard your parents as kindly given you hy God, to support, 
direct, and govern you in your present state of weakness and inexperience. 
Express your respect for them in your manner and conversation. Do«not neg- 
lect those outward signs of dependence and inferiority which suit your age. 
You are young, and you should therefore take the lowest place, and rather re- 
tire than thrust yourselves forward into notice. You have much to learn, and 
you should therefore hear, instead of seeking to be heard. You are dependent, 
and you should therefore ask instead of demanding what you desire, and you 
should receive every thing from your parents as a favor, and not as a debt. I do 
not mean to urge upon you a slavish fear of your parents. Love them, and love 
them ardently ; but mingle a sense of their superiority with your love. Feel a 
confidence in their kindness ; but let not this confidence make you rude and 
presumpfuous, and lead to indecent familiarity. Talk to them with openness 
and freedom ; but never contradict with violence ; never answer witlv passion 
or contempt. 

2. You should be grateful to your parents. Consider how much you owe them. 
Tlie time has been, and it was not a long time past, when you depended wholly 
on their kindness — when you had no strength to make a single effort for your- 
selves, — when you could neither speak nor walk, and knew not tiie use of any 
of your powers. Had not a parent's arm supported you, you must have fallen 
to the earth, and perished. Observe with attention the infants which you 
so often see, and consider that a little while ago you were as feeble as they are : 
you were only a burden and a care, and you had nothing with which you 
could repay your parents' affection. But did they forsake you ? How many 
sleepless nights have they been disturbed b3ryour cries! "When you were sick, 
how tenderly did they hang over you ! With what pleasure have they seen 
you grow up to your present state ! And what do you now possess which you 
have not received from their hands? God, indeed, is your great parent, your 
best friend, and from him every good gift descends ; but God is pleased to be- 
stow every thing upon you through the kindness of your parents. To your 
parents j'^ou owe every comfort : you owe to them the shelter you enjoy from the 
rain and cold, the raiment which covers, and the food which nourishes you. 
While you are seeking amusements, or are emploj^ed in gaining knowledge at 
school, your parents are toiling that you may be happy, that your wants may 
be supplied, tliat your minds may be improved, tliat you may grow up and be 
useful in the world. And when you consider how often you have forfeited all 
tins kindness, and yet how ready they have been to forgive you, and to con- 
tinue their favors, ought you not to look upon them with the tenderest grati- 
tude? What greater monster can there be than an unthankful child, whose 
heart is never warmed by the daily expressions of parental solicitude; who, 
instead of requiting his best friend by his affectionate conduct, is sullen and pas- 
sionate, and thinks his parents have done nothing for him, because they will not 
do all he desires? Consider how much better tliey can decide for you than you 
can for yourselves. You know but little of the world in which you live. You 
hastily catch at every thing which promises you pleasure ; and unless the au- 



'746 D^- CHANNING— FILIAL DUTY. 

thority of a parent should restrain you, you would soon rush into ruin, without 
a thought or a fear. In pursuing your own inclinations, your health would be 
destroyed, your minds would run waste, you would grow up slothful, selfish, 
a trouble to others, and burdensome to yourselves. Submit, tlien, cheerfully to 
your parents. Have you not experienced their goodness long enough to know, 
that they wish to make you happy, even wlieu their commands are most severe? 
Prove, then, your sense of their goodness by doing cheerfully what they require. 
When they oppose your wishes, do not think that you have more knowledge 
than they. Do not receive their commands with a sour, angry, sullen look, 
which says, louder than words, that you obey only because you dare not rebel. 
If they deny your requests, do not persist in urging them, but consider how 
many requests they have already granted you. Do not expect that your parents 
are to give up every thing to you, but study to give up every thing to them. 
Do not wait for them to threaten, but when a look tells you what they want, 
fly to perform it. This is the way in which you can best reward them for all 
their pains and labors. In this way you will make their houses pleasant and 
cheerful. But if you are disobedient, perverse, and stubborn, you will make 
home a place of contention, noise, and anger, and your best friends will have 
reason to wish that you had never been born. A disobedient child almost al- 
w^ays grows up ill-natured and disobliging to all with whom lie is connected. 
None love him, and he has no heart to love any but himself If j'^ou would be 
amiable in your temper and manner, and desire to be beloved, let me advise you 
to begin life with giving up your wills to j'our parents. 

3. Again, you should express your respect for your parents, by placing unre- 
served confidence in them. Tiiis is a very important part of your duty. Chil- 
dren should learn to be honest, sincere, open-hearted to their parents. An artful, 
hypocritical child is one of the most unpromising characters in the world. You 
should luive no secrets which you are unwilling to disclose to your parents. If 
you have done wrong, you should openly couless it, and ask that forgiveness 
which a parent's lieart is so ready to bestow. If you wish to undertake any 
thing, ask their consent. Never begin any thing in the hope you can conceal 
your design. If you once strive to impose on your parents, j'ou will be led on, 
from one step to another, to invent folselioods, to practice artifice, till you become 
contemptible and hateful. You will soon be detected, and then none will trust 
j^ou. Sincerity in a child will make up for many faults. Of children, he is the 
worst who watches the eyes of his parents, pretends to obey as long as they 
see him, but as soon as they have turned away does what they have forbidden. 
Whatever else 3"ou do, never deceive. Let your parents always learn your faults 
from your own lips, and be assured they will never love you the less for your 
openness and sincerity. 

4. Lastly, you must prove j'our respect and gratitude to your parents by at- 
tending seriously to their instructions and admonitions, and by improving the 
advantages they afford you for becoming wise, tiseful, good, and happy for ever. 
I hope, my young friends, tliat you have parents who take care, not only of 
your bodies, but your souls ; who instruct you in your duty, who talk to j'ou 
of 3'oar God and Saviour, who teach you to pray and to read the Scriptures, 
and who strive to give you such knowledge, and bring you up in such liabits, 
as will lead you to usefulness on earth, and to hap|)iness in heaven. If you 
have not, I can only pity you; I have little hope that I can do you good by 
what I have here said. IBut if your parents are foithful in instructing and guid- 
ing you, you must prove your gratitude to them and to God, by listening 
respectfully and attentively to what they say; by shunning the temptations of 
which they warn you, and by walking in the paths they mark out before you. 
You must labor to answer their hopes and wishes, by improving in knowledge; 
by being industrious at school; by living peaceably with your companions; by 
avoiding all profane and wicked language; by fleeing bad coinpmy ; by treat- 
ing all persons with respect; by being kind and generous and honest, and by 
loving and serving your Father in heaven. This is the happiest and mo.-^t de- 
lightful way of repaying the kindness of your parents. Let them see you grow- 
ing up with amiable tempers and industrious habits; let them see you delighting 
to do good, and fearing to oflfend God; and they will think you have never 
been a burden. — Duties of Children. Works III., p. 287. 



GOETHE. -CULTIVATION OF REVEUENCE. '^■47 

CULTIVATION OF REVEEEX'' ^.* 

We must fancy Wilhelm in the ' Pedagogic pr jvince,' proceeding towards the 
'Chief, or the Three,' with iment to place his son under their charge, in that 
wonderi'ul region, ' where he was to see so many shigularities.' 

Wilhelm had already noticed that in the cut and color of the j'oung people's 
clothes a variety prevailed, which gave the whole tiny population a peculiar 
aspect: he was about to question his attendant on this point, when a still 
stranger observation forced itself upon him : all the children, how employed 
soever, laid down their work, and turned, with singular yet diverse gestures, 
towards the party riding past them ; or rather, as it was easy to infer, towards 
the Overseer, who was in it. The youngest laid their arms crosswise over 
their breasts, and looked cheerfully up to the sky ; those of middle size held 
their hands on their backs, and looked smiling on the ground ; the eldest stood 
with a frank and spirited air, — their arms stretched down, they turned their 
heads to the right, and formed themselves into a line; whereas the others kept 
separate, each where he chanced to be. 

The riders having stopped and dismounted here, as several children, in their 
various modes, were standing forth to be inspected by the Overseer, Wilhelm 
asked the meaning of these gestures ; but Felix struck-in and cried gaily : 
"What posture am I to take then?" "Without doubt," said the Overseer, 
" the first posture : the arms over the breast, the face earnest and cheerful to- 
wards the sky." Felix obeyed, but soon cried: "This is not much to my 
taste; I see nothing up there: does it last long? But yes !" exclaimed he, 
joyfully, "yonder are a'pair of falcons flying from the west to the east: that is 
a good sign, too?" — "As thou takest it, as thou behavest," said the other: 
"Now mingle among them as they mingle." He gave a signal, and the chil- 
dren left their postures, and again betook them to work or sport as before. 

Wilhelm a second time ' asks the meaning of these gestures;' but the Over- 
seer is not at liberty to throw much light on the matter ; mentions only that 
they are symbolical, ' nowise mere grimaces, but have a moral purport, which 
perhaps the Chief or the Three may farther explain to him.' The children 
themselves, it would seem, only know it in part ; ' secrecy having many ad- 
vantages ; for when you tell a man at once and straightforward the purpose of 
any object, he fancies there is nothing in it.' By and by, however, having left 
Felix by the way. and parted with the Overseer, Wilhelm arrives at the abode 
of the Three ' who preside over sacred things,' and from whom farther satis- 
faction is to be looked for. 

Wilhelm had now reached the gate of a wooded vale, surrounded with high 
walls : on a certain sign, the little door opened, and a man of earnest, imposing 
look received our Traveler. The latter found himself in a large beautifully 
umbrageous space, decked with the richest foliage, shaded with trees and 
bushes of all sorts ; while stately walls and magnificent buildings were dis- 
cerned only in glimpses through this thick natural boscage. A friendly recep- 
tion from the Three, who by and by appeared, at last turned into a general con- 
versation, the substance of which we now present in an abbreviated shape. 

" Since you intrust your sou to us," said they, "it is fair that we admit you 
to a closer view of our procedure. Of what is external you have seen much 
that does not bear its meaning on its front. What part of this do you wish to 
have explained?" 

" Dignified yet singular gestures of salutation I have noticed ; the import of 
which I would gladly learn : with you, doubtless, the exterior has a reference 
to the interior, and inversel}' ; let me know what this reference is." 

"Well-formed healthy children," replied the Three, "bring much into the 
world along with them ; Nature has given to each whatever he requires for 
time and duration ; to unfold this is our duty ; often it unfolds itself better of 

* Carlyle's Critical and Miscellaneous Essays. Vol. I, 204. 



Y48 GOETHE— CULTIVATION OF REVERENCE. 

its own accord. One thing there is, however, which no cliild brings into the 
world with him ; and yet it is on this one thing that all depends for making 
man in every point a man. If you can discover it yourself, speak it out." 
Wilhelm thought a little while, then shook his head. 

The Three, after a suitable pause, exclaimed, " Revereuce !" "Wilhelm 
seemed to hesitate. "Reverence I" cried they, a second time. " All want it, 
perhaps yourself." 

" Three kinds of gestures you have seen ; and we inculcate a threefold rev- 
erence, which, when commingled and formed into one whole, attains its full 
force and effect. The first is Reverence for what is Above us. That posture, 
the arms crossed over the breast, the look turned joyfully towards heaven; 
that is what we have enjoined on young children ; requiring from them thereby 
a testimony that there is a God above, who images and reveals himself in 
parents, teachers, superiors. Then comes the second ; Reverence for what is 
Under us. Those hands folded over the back, and, as it were, tied together; 
that down-turned smiling look, announce that we are to regard the earth with 
attention and cheerfulness: from the bounty of the earth we are nourished; 
the earth affords unutterable joys ; but disproportionate sorrows she also brings 
us. Should one of our children do himself external hurt, blamably or blame- 
lessly; should others hurt him accidentally or purposely; should dead invol- 
untary matter do him hurt; then let him well consider it; for such dangers 
will attend him all his days. But from this posture we delay not to free our 
pupil, the instant we become convinced that the instruction connected with it 
has produced sufBcient influence on him. Then, on the contrarj'^, we bid him 
gather courage, and, turning to his comrades, range himself along with them. 
Now, at last, he stands forth, frauk and bold ; not selfishly isolated ; only in 
combination with his equals does he front the world. Farther we have nothing 
to add." 

" I see a glimpse of it 1" said Wilhelm. " Are not the mass of men so marred 
and stinted, because they take pleasure only in the element of evil-wishing and 
evil-speaking? Whoever gives himself to this, soon comes to be indifferent 
towards God, contemptuous towards the world, spiteful towards his equals; 
and the true, genuine indispensable sentiment of self-estimation corrupts into 
self-conceit and presumption. Allow me, however," continued he, "to state 
one difiSculty. You say that revereuce is not natural to man : now has not the 
revereuce or fear of rude people for violent convulsions of nature, or other in- 
explicable mysteriously foreboding occurrences, been heretofore regarded as 
the germ out of which a higher feeling, a purer sentiment, was by degrees to 
be developed?" 

"Nature is indeed adequate to fear," replied they, "but to reverence not 
adequate. Men fear a known or unknown powerful being; the strong seeks 
to conquer it, the weak to avoid it ; both endeavor to get quit of it, and feel 
themselves happy when for a short season they have put it aside, and their na- 
ture has in some degree restored itself to freedom and independence. The 
natural man repeats this operation millions of times in the course of his life ; 
from fear he struggles to freedom ; from freedom he is driven back to fear, and 
so makes no advancement. To fear is easy, but grievous ; to reverence is diffi- 
cult, but satisfactory. Man does not willingly submit himself to reverence, or 
rather he never so submits himself: it is a higher sense which must be com- 
municated to his nature ; which only in some favored individuals unfolds itself 
spontaneously, who on this account, too, have of old been looked upon as 
Saints and Gods. Here lies the worth, here lies the business of all true Re- 
ligions, whereof there are likewise only three, according to the objects towards 
which they direct our devotion." 

The men paused ; Wilhelm reflected for a time in silence ; but feeling in him- 
self no pretension to unfold these strange words, he requested the Sages to 
proceed with their exposition. They immediately complied. " No Religion 
that grounds itself on fear," said they, " is regarded among us. With the rev- 
erence to which a man should give dominion in his mind, he can, in paying 
honor, keep his own honor ; he is not disunited with himself as in the former 
case. The Religion which depends on Reverence for what is Above us, we 
denominate the Ethnic; it is the Religion of the Nations, and the first happy 
deliverance from a degrading fear : all Heathen religions, as we call them, are 



GOETHE.— CITLTIVATION OF REVERENCE, 749 

of tilis sort, whatsoever names they ma}' bear. The Second Religion, which 
founds itself on Reverence for what is Around us, we denominate the Philo- 
sophical ; for tlie Philosopher stations himself in the middle, and must draw 
down to him all that is higher, and up to him all that is lower, and only in thi.s 
medium condition does he merit the title of Wise. Here as he surveys with 
clear si2;ht his relation to his equals, and therefore to the whole human race, 
his relation likewise to all other earthly circumstances and arrangements nec- 
essary or accidental, he alone, in a cosmic sense, lives in truth. But now we 
have to speak of the Third Religion, grounded on Reverence for what is I'nder 
us: this we name the Christian; as in the Christian Religion sucl) a temper is 
the most distinctly manifested : it is a last step to which mankind were htted 
and destined to attain. But what a task was it, not only to be patient with 
the Earth, and let it lie beneath us, we appealing to a higher birthplace; but 
also to recognize humility and poverty, mockery and despite, disgrace and 
wretchedness, suffering and death, to recognize these things as divine; nay, 
even on sin and crime to look not as hindrances, but to honor and love them as 
furtherances, of what is holy. Of this, indeed, we find some traces in all ages : 
but the trace is not the goal : and this being now attained, the human species 
can not retrograde; and we may say that the Christian Religion, having once 
appeared, can not again vanish; having once assumed its divine shape, can be 
subject to no dissolution." 

" To which of these Religions do you specially adhere ?" inquired Wilhelm. 

"To all the three," replied they, "for in their union they produce what may 
properly be called the true Religion. Out of those three Reverences springs 
the highest Reverence, Reverence for One's self, and these again unfold them- 
selves from this; so that man attains the highest elevation of which he is ca- 
pable, that of being justified in reckoning himself the Best that God and Na- 
ture have produced ; nay. of being able to continue on this lofty eminence, 
without being again by self-conceit and presumption drawn down from it into 
the vulgar level." 

The Three undertake to admit him into the interior of their Sanctuary; 
whither, accordingly, he, 'at the hand of the Eldest,' proceeds on the morrow. 
Sorry are we that we can not follow them into the ' octagonal hall,' so full of 
paintings, and the ' gallery open on one side, and stretching round a spacious, 
gay, flowery garden.' It is a beautiful figurative representation, by pictures 
and symbols of Art, of the First and the Second Religions, the Ethnic and the 
Philosophical ; for the former of which the pictures have been composed from 
the Old Testament ; for the latter from the New. We can only make room for 
some small portions. 

"I observe," said Wilhelm, "you have done the Israelites the honor to se- 
lect their history as the groundwork of this delineation, or rather you have 
made it the leading object there." 

" As you see,'' replied the Eldest; "for you will remark, that on the socles 
and friezes we have introduced another series of transactions and occurrences, 
not so much of a synchronistic as of a symphronistic kind ; since, among all 
nations, we discover records of a similar import, and grounded on the same 
facts. Thus you perceive here, while, in the main field of the picture, Abra- 
ham receives a visit from his gods in the form of fair youths. Apollo among 
the herdsmen of Admetus is painted above on the frieze. From which we 
may learn, that the gods, when they appear to men, are commonly unrecog- 
nized of them." 

The friends walked on. Wilhelm, for the most part, met with well-known 
objects; but they were here exhibited in a livelier, more expressive manner, 
than he had been used to see them. On some few matters he requested ex- 
planation, and at last could not help returning to his former question: "Why 
the Israelitish history had been chosen in preference to all others?" 

The Eldest answered: "Among all Heathen religions, for such also is the 
Israelitish, this has the most distinguished advantages ; of which I shall men- 
tion only a few. At the Ethnic judgment-seat ; at the judgment-seat of the 



750 



GOETHE.— CULTIVATION OF REVERENCE. 



God of Nations, it is not asked whether this is the best, the most excellent na- 
tion; but whether it lasts, whether it has continued. The Israelitish people 
never was good for much, as its own leaders, judges, rulers, prophets, have a 
thousand times reproachfully declared : it possesses few virtues, and most of 
the faults of other nations : but in cohesion, steadfastness, valor, and when all 
this would not serve, in obstinate toughness, it has no match. It is the most 
perseverant nation in the world; it is, it was, and it will be, to glorify the name 
of Jehovah through all ages. We have set it up, therefore, as the pattern 
figure: as the main figure, to which the others only serve as a frame." 

"It becomes not me to dispute with you," said Wilhelm, "since you liave 
instruction to impart. Open to me, therefore, the other advantages of this 
people, or rather of its history, of its religion." 

" One chief advantage," said the other, " is its excellent collection of Sacred 
Books. These stand so happily combined together, that even out of the most 
diverse elements, the feeling of a whole still rises before us. They are com- 
plete enough to satisfy ; fragmentary enough to excite ; barbarous enough to 
rouse ; tender enough to appease ; and for how many other contradicting 
merits might not these Books, might not this one Book, be praised ?" * * * 

Thus wandering on, they had now reached the gloomy and perplexed pe- 
riods of the History, the destruction of the City and the Temple, the murder, 
exile, slavery of whole masses of this stiff-necked people. Its subsequent for- 
tunes were delineated in a cunning allegorical wa}'-; a real historical delinea- 
tion of them would have lain without tlie limits of true Art. 

At this point, the gallery abruptly terminated in a closed door, and "Wilhelm 
was surprised to see himself already at the end. "In your historical teries," 
said he, "I find a chasm. You have destroyed the Temple of Jerusalem, and 
dispersed the people ; yet you have not introduced the divine man wlio taught 
there shortly before ; to whom, shortly before, they would give no ear." 

"To have done this, as you require it, would have been an error. The life 
of that divine Man, whom you allude to, stands in no connection with the 
general history of the world in his time. It was a private life ; his teaching 
was a teaching for individuals. What has publicly befallen vast masses of peo- 
ple, and the minor parts which compose them, belongs to the general History 
of the World, to the general Religion of the World ; the Religion we have 
named the First. What inwardly befalls individuals belongs to the Second Re- 
ligion, the Philosophical : such a Religion was it that Christ taught and prac- 
ticed, so long as he went about on Earth. For this reason, the external here 
closes, and I now open to you the internal." 

A door went back, and they entered a similar gallery ; where Wilhelm soon 
recognized a corresponding series of Pictures from the New Testament. They 
seemed as if by another hand than the first : all was softer ; forms, movements, 
accompaniments, light and coloring. 

Into this second gallery, with its strange doctrine about ' Miracles and Para- 
bles,' the characteristic of the Philosophical Religion, we can not enter for the 
present, yet must give one hurried glance. Wilhelm expresses some surprise 
that these delineations terminate " with the Supper, with the scene where the 
Master and his Disciples part." He inquires for the remaining portion of the 
history. 

"In all sorts of instruction," said the Eldest, "in all sorts of communication, 
we are fond of separating whatever it is possible to separate ; for by this 
means alone can the notion of importance and peculiar significance arise in the 
young mind. Actual experience of itself niiu'^Jes and mixes all things to- 
gether ; here, accordingly, we have entirelj' disjoined that sublime Man's life 
from its termination. In life, he appears as a true Philosopher, — let not the ex- 
pression stagger you, — as a Wise Man in the highest sense. He stands firm to 
his point; he goes on his way inflexibly, and while he exalts the lower to him- 
self, while he makes the ignorant, the poor, the sick, partakers of his wisdom, 
of his riches, of his strength, he, on the other hand, in nowise conceals his di- 
vine origin; he dares to equal himself with God, nay, to declare that he him- 
self is God. In this manner he is wont, from youth upwards, to astound his 



GOETHE -CULTIVATION OF REVERENCE. ^51 

familiar friends : of tliese he gains a part to his own cause ; irritates the rest 
against him ; and shows to all men, who are aiming at a certain elevation in 
doctrine and life, wliat they have to look for from the world. And thus, for 
the noble portion of mankind, his walk and conversation are even more in- 
structive and profitable than his death : for to those trials everj^ one is called, 
to this trial but a few. Now, omitting all tl.at results from this consideration, 
do but look at the touching scene of the Last Supper. Here the Wise Man, as 
it ever is, leaves tliose that are his own, utterly orphaned behind him ; and 
while he is careful for the Good, he feeds along with them a traitor, by whom 
be and the Better are to be destroyed." 

This seems to us to have 'a deep, still meaning;' and the longer and closer 
we examine it, the more it pleases us. Wilhelra is not admitted into the shrine 
of the Third Religion, the Christian, or that of which Christ's sufferings and 
death were the symbol, as his walk and conversation had been the symbol of 
the Second, or Philosophical Religion. " That last Religion," it is said, — 

"That last Religion, which arises from the Reverence of what is Beneath us; 
tliat veneration of the contradictory, the hated, the avoided, we give to each 
of our pupils, in small portions, by way of outfit, along with him, into the 
world, merel}' tliat he may know where more is to be had, should such a want 
spring up witliin him. I invite you to return hitlier at the end of a year, to 
attend our general Festival, and see how far j'our son is advanced : then shall 
you be admitted into the Sanctuary of Sorrow." 

"Permit mo one question," said Wilhelm : " as you have set up the life of 
this divine Man for a pattern and example, have you likewise selected his suf- 
ferings, his death, as a model of exalted patience 7" 

"Undoubtedly we have," replied the Boldest, "Of this we make no secret; 
but we draw a veil over those sufferings, even because we reverence them so 
higlily. We hold it a damnable audacity to bring forth that torturing Cross, 
and the Hoi}'' One who sutlers on it, or to expose them to the light of tlie Sun, 
which hid its face when a reckless world forced such a sight on it; to take 
these mysterious secrets, in wliich the divine depth of Sorrow lies hid, and 
play with them, fondle them, trick them out, and rest not till the most reverend 
of all solemnities appears vulgar and paltry. Let so much for the present suf- 
fice — * * * The rest we must still owe j^ou for a twelvemonth. The instruc- 
tion, which in the interim we give the children, no stranger is allowed to wit- 
ness : then, however, come to us, and you will hear what our best Speakers 
think it serviceable to make public on those matters." 

Could we hope that, in its present disjointed state, this emblematic sketch 
would rise before tiie minds of our readers, in any measure as it stood before 
the mind of the writer ; that, in considering it, they might seize only an out- 
line of those many meanings which, at less or greater depth, lie hidden under 
it, we should anticipate their thanks for having, a first or a second time, 
brought it before them. As it is, believing that, to open-minded truth-seeking 
men, the deliberate words of an open-minded truth-seeking man can in no case 
be wholly unintelligible, nor the words of such a man as Goethe indifferent, we 
have transcribed it for their perusal. If we induce them to turn to the original, 
and study this in its completeness, with so much else that environs it, and 
bears on it, they will thank us still more, To our own judgment at least, there 
is a fine and pure significance in this whole delineation: such phrases even as 
'the Sanctuary of Sorrow,' 'the divine depth of Sorrow,' have of themselves a 
pathetic wisdom for us ; as indeed a tone of devoutness, of calm, mild, priest- 
like dignity pervades the whole. In a time like ours, it is rare to see, in the 
writings of cultivated men, any opinion whatever bearing any mark of sincerity 
on such a subject as this: yet it is and continues the highest subject, and tliey 
that are highest are most fit for studying it, and helping others to study it. 



NATURE AND ART. 
§ 10. . NATURE AND ART. 

In looking at our nature we discover among its admirable endowments, 
the sense of perception of Beauty. We see the germ of this in every 
human being, and there is no power which admits greater cultivation ; 
and why should it not be cherished in all ? * * * Beauty is an all- 
pervading presence. It unfolds in the numberless flowers of the spring. 
It waves in the branches of the trees and the green blades of grass. It 
haunts the depths of the earth and sea, and gleams out in the hues of 
the shell and the precious stone. And not only these minute objects, 
but the ocean, the mountains, the clouds, the heavens, the stars, the 
rising and setting sun, all overflow with beauty. The universe is its 
temple ; and those men who are alive to it can not lift their eyes without 
feeling themselves encompassed with it on every side. An infinite joy is 
lost to the world by the want of culture of this spiritual endowment. 
Suppose that I were to visit a cottage, and to see its walls lined with the 
choicest pictures of Raphael, and every spare nook filled with statues of 
the most exquisite workmanship, and that I were to learn that neither 
man, woman, nor child ever cast an eye at these miracles of art, how 
should I feel their privation ! how should I want to open their ej^es, and 
to help thein to comprehend and feel the loveliness and grandeur which in 
vain courted their notice ! But every husbandman is living in sight of the 
works of a divine artist; and how much would his existence be elevated 
could he see the glory which shines forth in their forms, hues, propor- 
tion, and moral expression ! I have spoken only of the beauty of nature, 
but how much of this mysterious charm is found in the elegant arts and 
especially in literature? The best books have the most beauty. The 
greatest truths are wronged if not linked with beauty, and they win their 
way most surely and deeply into the soul when arrayed in this their nat- 
ural and fit attire. W. E. Channing. Self-Gidture 

Beauty — a living presence of the earth, 

Surpassing the most fair ideal forms 

Which craft of delicate spirit hast composed 

From eartli's materials, waits upon my steps ; 

Pitches her tents before me as I move, 

An hourly neighbor. Wordsworth. 

Nature never did betray 
The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege 
Through all the years of this our life, to lead 
From joy to joy ; for she can so inform 
The mind that is within us, so impress 
With quietness and beauty, and so feed 
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, 
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men 
Shall e'er prevail against us, or distrust 
Our cheerful faith that all which we behold 
Is full of blessings. * * 

* * When thy mind 
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms, 
Thy memory be as a dwelling-place 
For all sweet sounds and harmonies : oh ! then 
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief 
Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts 
Of tender joy, will thou remember me 
And these my exhortations. 

WoKDswaRTH. On revisiting the Wye. 



PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN PRUSSIA. 753 

krobbl's infant and primary schools. 

The infant garden did not at first meet with favor from the school authorities 
of Berlin, and has attained its present development there under individual and 
associated aiispices, by which training schools have been established and the 
system has thus been provided with appropriate teachers. In the notice which 
follows of Frobel's labors we adopt substantially the account by Dr. Schmidt, 
in his History of Education, in place of the memoranda made after a visit to 
several of these "gardens of infant culture," in Hamburg, in 1854. 

Frederic Wilhelm August Frobel was born April 21, 1782, at Oberweissbach, 
in the principality of Rudolstadt, where he passed his infancy in the rural life 
of a country parsonage. At the age of 10 years he was placed under the caro 
of an uncle, the Rev. Superintendent Hoffman, at Stadt-Ilm. His teachers 
understood not the dreamy love of nature in the boy, and some years later he 
began the study of forestry under a forester in Neuhaus. His favorite sciences 
were mathematics and natural history. In the year 1805 he entered upon his 
proper profession by engaging as a teacher at Gruner's school, in Frankfort. 
He read with profound interest the works of Pestalozzi, and lived and labored 
two years with this great pedagogue * Inspired by the enthusiastic nobleness 
of the profession, he resolved to qualify himself more for an efficient discharge 
of its duties, and entered upon a course of studies at the universities of Gottin- 
gen and Berlin, devoting himself principally to the Asiatic languages, history, 
and philosophy. In 1813 he participated in the war for the liberation of his 
country, and the dawning sun of national liberty awoke in him the desire to 
promote the development of the spiritual freedom of the people. This desire 
was strengthened by Ficlite's work on national education, and by his intercourse 
with Middendorff and Langethal. After the war Frobel was appointed assistant 
inspector of the Royal Museum of Mineralogy, at Berlin. In 1826 he published 
bis work on " Human Education." After laboring some years in the education 
of the children of a deceased brother, and at a special institution in Keilhau, 
(1817 to 1828,) he undertook the reorganization of a popular school in Swit- 
zerland, where he laid the basis of his reputation as a practical educator, in the 
institution he established in the castle of Waldense'e, placed at his disposition by 
the generous owner. As a result of the first public examination in this school, 
he was invited by a deputation from the canton of Bern to the position of director 
of a new orphan home to be established in Burgdorf, Avhich he accepted. 

Frobel's experience of life and his conversations with teachers lead him again 
to the conviction that school education was without its true foundation until 
a reformation in the family and home education could be effected. The 
importance of the earliest education and the necessity of training competent 
mothers rose vividly before his mind. He resolved to apply his new idea of 
education, the realization of which had been prevented by unavoidable obstacles, 
at least to the training of earliest youth, and to replace his *' Book for Mothers" 
by a theoretical and practical instruction for women. With this intent he relin- 
quished his charge in Burgdorf and went to Berlin, where the idea of an infant 
school matured in him. At Burgdorf and in Berlin it had become Frobel's firm 
conviction that to excite the desire for learning must precede all instruction, and 
that to educate is a human function, springing from the inner life, but also react- 
ing, in a developing and progressive manner, on this source ; that the family is 

* Pestalozzi wro*e in Frobel's album, October 7, 1805 : 

Man forces the way to his aim 
By the flame of tliought 
And the bolt of eloquence ; 
But he accomplishes his task 
He perfects himself. 
Only by silence and action. 

48 



754 PUPLIC INSTRUCTION IN PRUSSIA. 

the centre, en the health of which depends not only the health of the state, 
but without the prosperity of which no real progress in education can take place. 
At Blankenburg these ideas became reality. In his infant-garden (kindergar- 
ten) Frobel undertook to give life and form to his pedagogic views. 

THE KINDERGARTEN. 

The infant-garden, as Frobel says, leads the child back to nature, into 
nature, through the garden, that it may early know, what God united man shall 
not part. He occupied himself with the child under school age, and made it his 
object to develop all the powers and faculties of the child, which are necssary 
to a full realization of instruction in school. In the first years of life, when a 
child learns quickest and easiest, and lays the foundation to his entire intellec- 
tual life, to withdraw the young mind from a home in which, left to itself, it falls 
into moral and mental decay; to bring the children of families in which exists a 
healthy life for some hours every day into communion with their equals, and to 
give them a common employment, so necessary to the development of the mind, 
and which can be executed only by a number of children of the same age — such 
is the purpose of the infant-garden. 

On the four-hundredth anniversary of the invention of the art of printing 
Frobel founded his infant-garden, which was to embrace four institutions: 1st, 
a model institute for the care of children ; 2d, a training school for nurses of 
children ; 3d, an institute for suitable plays and amusements of children ; 4th, 
an establishment with which all parents, mothers, educators, and especially 
future infant-gardeners, should be in constant relation by a published periodical. 
Frobel called his institution infant-garden (kindergarten) because he thought it 
necessary that a garden should be connected with it, and because he wished 
symbolically to indicate by this name that children resemble the plants of a 
garden, and should be treated with similar care. He declares the object of his 
first infant-garden, begun in Blankenburg, near Rudolstadt, to be : " It shall not 
only take under its care children under school age, but also give them occupa- 
tion suitable to their nature, to strengthen their bodies, to practice their senses, 
and to keep busy the awakening mind — to make them, in a pleasant manner, 
familiar with nature and man, by properly directing their minds to the first cause 
of aH life, to harmony with themselves." 

The adequate means for the realization of this object is, according to Frobel, 
play ; for it was clear to him that the revival of intellectual activity in the first 
years of life cannot be brought about by instruction, but only by activity — 
which means, by an activity peculiar to the child. *' In the occupation and play 
of a child, especially in its first years, is formed, in union with its surroundings 
and under their quiet and unperceived co-operation, not only the germ but also 
the heart of its future life, in regard to all which we must acknowledge as 
belonging to germ and heart — inner life, self-reliance, and future individuality. 
From the first occupation results not only the exercise and invigoration of the 
body, limbs, and exterior organs of the senses, but, above all, the development of 
the heart, the culture of the spirit, and the wakisg of inner feelings and instinctive 
judgment." An inward and outward activity in and through play is the aim 
of Frobel — instead of words to induce the child to action, instead of books to 
give him means of employment, to bring life where hitherto only abstractions 
were ruling. By regulated means of occupation to oflfer suitable food to the 
desire of activity striving for development — this is the task of the infant-garden. 
By self-employment the child shall be induced to free activity, to labor in its 
highest sense ; and, in truth, the ethic and economic value of labor is here recog- 
nized, because it becomes manifest that it not only develops the physical power 
but promotes intelligent attention, devotion, and endurance ; also, the child is 
made conscious of the value of labor ; the enjoyment to be able to become use- 



PUBLIC IKSTRUCTION IN PRUSSIA. 755 

ful, is created ; finally, the way in which labor culminates and is ennobled in 
art is shown to the child, and in him to mankind in general. As the Creator 
creates ever since the beginning, so his image, man, wants activity from his first 
existence. 

The infant garden and its plays are based on the laws of human nature. la 
themFrobel has laid the foundation for the scientific treatment of the infant age; 
by a faithful observation of nature and a devoted attachment to infant life, he 
has discovered its psychologic laws and applied them with great insight to the 
gifts of play. All intellectual functions find in them occasion to utter them- 
selves ; the longing for motion finds nourishment in the gymnastics of play, the 
desire of knowledge is regulated and developed by the exercise of the senses 
and faculties of observation ; the wish for activity obtains an opportunity for 
normal cultivation by voluntary employment ; ideality is excited and sustained 
by the formation of beautiful forms, by singing, drawing, &c. In this manner 
the infant garden makes use of play as a conscious and fertile means of educa- 
tion. It takes hold of the truly childish nature and gives to the infant mind a 
suitable nourishment ; it allows the child to remain a child and keeps away 
what belongs to a riper age. Its main employments are plays, its means 
of education the instruments of play. To begin with natural development, 
Frobel went back to the first education by the mother. In his " caressing 
songs of the mother" he gives a clue to the manner in which the child is to be 
treated during the first two or three years of life. In the " first gift of play," 
the box with six balls, which contain tliree primary and three mixed colors, he 
offers the first toy, the simplest body, by which a harmonious impression is 
made on the child when the box is held before its eyes. If then the mother 
hangs the various balls, alternately, on a string over the bed of the infant, it will, 
in fixing its eyes upon the object attracting its look, learn to understand the 
circumscription of the form and the distinction of color ; will also see the law of 
contrast when the intermediate color is placed between two primary colors ; as, 
also, in the motion of the ball, in the three directions of length, breadth, and 
depth, with accompanying song of " up and down," " to and fro," &c., it will 
receive an impression of motion, while, in encircling the ball in its hands, it will 
strengthen the muscles of the hand and have its sensation directed to one point. 

From the ball the " second gift of play" passes over to the cube, the sim- 
plest regular body with even surfaces, and adds next the intermediate between 
ball and cube, the cylinder. With ball, cylinder, and cube, the three normal 
forms, are now executed various plays, by moving and spinning them on a 
thread or needle. By quickly turning the cube, as the needle or thread is fast- 
ened in the surface, corner, or edges, appear the different axes, and the three 
fundamental forms of mechanics are shown — cylinder, wheel, and double cone. 
By perceiving that the cylinder — in the disappearance of the corners of the cube 
in turning — is contained in the cube, and the ball in the cylinder, the law is 
demonstrated how all succeeding is contained in the preceding form. Thus the 
infant mind is impressed with the first laws of space, form, and motion. When 
the child has seen in the ball the dimensions of time and space, it has, in the 
second gift, experienced the idea of motion, always hearing the corresponding 
little songs ; and when, by these plays and its total surroundings, it is so far 
developed as to express the various forms and begins to busy itself more inde- 
pendently with the different ideas, to inquire into the cause of things, and desires 
to analyze the whole into its parts and to unite again the parts into a whole, it 
receives the "third gift of play" — the cube, divided through the centre, parallel 
to all sides. With this gift the child begins to invent. It discovers that unity 
becomes a plurality, that the many parts are similar to the whole and equal 
among themselves ; it realizes similarity, equality, and inequality of objects ; it 
distinguishes the whole and its parts by the division, the size and form, and 
takes an idea of a whole, a half, a quarter, an eighth, of above, below, inside, and 



756 PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN PRUSSIA. 

outside. The play with this gift will answer the threefold desire for activity 
in the child ; it will represent with the eightfold divided cube, the forms of per- 
ception, life, and beauty, by making of the cube two halves, four quarters, &c ; 
by building chairs, benches, tables, &c.; by laying out circles, stars, flowers, 
&c. Aud as in this manner it can form and invent, by aid of the eight cubes, 
more than 300 forms, it prepares the action of reason by the forms it recognizes, 
the practical in human society by the forms of life it imitates, and the world of 
feeling by the forms of beauty. In tliis, as in all plays of Frobel, attention 
should be given to the following : 

1. In building the child has a small slate, divided into squares of equal size, 
with the surfaces of the cubes to build on, that it may from die beginning accus- 
tom itself to regularity, cai-e and precision, exactitude and beauty. 

2. To create in the chiJd at once, clearly and distinctly, the impression of the 
whole, the play should be handed him for his free use, opening the cover of the 
box a little, then turning it upside down, then placing it right before the child, 
who should move the cover from underneath the box, so that the cubes iu it, 
after lifting off the box, lie on the table in the form of one large cube. With 
this cube the child begins to play, as long as it wishes quietly to itself, until, 
by look and voice, it invites your aid, when words are given to his doings, 

3. In no play should the child be allowed to destroy; it should always add 
to the given form or create something new, &c. 

In each formation the child should use up all the cubes, in order to become 
accustomed to reflection, to have always a distinct aim before his eyes, to look 
at the object to be represented in many relations and regards — which is neces- 
sary when, for instance, a cube left over must be put into connection with the 
object represented — to make use of all the material at his disposition, and to pass 
over nothing unnoticed nor leave anything unused. 

The "fourth gift of play" is the cube divided into eight tablets, by which, 
instead of contents, the extent of surface appears, and not only space-filling forms 
of beauty, life, and perception, but also space-encircling hollow forms may be 
executed ; the law of equihbrium — in laying on the small side of one tablet 
another with its broad side — and the law of continued motion — by placing all 
tablets in a line, so that the falling of the first will cause all others to fall also — 
are presented to the child's view and comprehension. 

Thus far the child plays to his fourth year of life. For the play from the 
fourth to the sixth year serve the fifth and sixth gifts of play. The " fifth gift " 
contains the cube divided twice in every direction, by which 27 small cubes are 
made, of which thi-ee are again cut in halves and three in quarters. This serves 
as a fundamental view into algebraic geometry and trigonometry. The child 
sees the triangle produced by the division, which as a body surrounded the 
prism ; it constructs the parallelogram and trapezoid and builds the Pj'Jiagorean 
problem. Beside these forms of perception, a great wealth of forms is given, 
which, indeed, introduce to the architecture of life aud beauty. 

The "sixth gift of play " contains cubes twice divided through all sides, into 
tablets, of which six are again cut in height and width, by which the square 
and form of column is represented. Parallel with these gifts are given small 
plates, as the surfaces ©f regular bodies, to bring into view their various figures. 
They consist in plates of triangles, showing the right, the acute, and the obtuse 
angle ; and of squares, beginning with four and doubling to 64. With them 
the child constructs regular figures, i. c, fquaresand rectangles, which, by diag- 
onals are divided into riglit angles, triangles, &c. Little wooden sticks serve to 
indicate the lines. In the play with sticks the child learns to know the perpen- 
dicular, horizontal and diagonal line ; to find them again in nature, and to apply 
them to practical life. Involuntarily it seizes the pencil to draw on the squares 
of the slate the forms made by the sticks while they are yet before its mind. 
Meanwhile children of three or four years work at plaiting, forming the prettiest 



PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN PRUSSIA. 757 

figures in tlieir plays, in accordance with the laws vividly before their spirit 
from the plays in which they previously engaged. Those who draio pass from 
the simplest to more complicated forms by way of contradistinction. Others 
are employed in carving, which goes hand in hand with drawing, when the child, 
with a pin, first makes the same figures and forms on square ruled paper. The 
carved flowers, birds, &c., are preparatory to plastic formations, in which the 
pin is exchanged for pencil and chisel. Auxiliary to plastic formations is the 
making of figures by so-called cross-sticks, of forms and figures in sticks and 
peas, and the art of coupling and pinching, which constructs little boats, boxes, 
ships, &c., from square pieces of paper. Singing enlivens and beautifies many 
of these plays, and conducks the child into the world of harmony. At the same 
time it is brought to nature and its life; the constant dwelling in the free air 
gives a familiarity with the life of nature. The child learns the care of ani- 
mals, of birds, rabbits, &c., which are given to its charge, and understands work 
in the garden by sowing and planting, digging, and watering a little bed of its 
own, while in such little work the name, form, and life of plants and animals is 
told him. Physical exercise is not neglected. The various plays of motion are 
adapted to the different degrees of development of the child. In the " caress- 
ing songs of mothers," such plays, which aim at a harmonious development of 
the body and all its limbs, are arranged in an ascending scale, and in part 
attached to imitations of motion in nature and life, which, in their execution, 
are accompanied by suitable little songs. 

While in this multiplicity of plays the choice is generally left to the child, 
his liberty is conceded, while, on the other hand, when the infant gardener desires 
to direct his attention more permanently to one certain play the child becomes 
accustomed to endurance and self-control. The will of the child is restrained 
and forced to join the thoughts and aims of a greater number, and to this end it 
often engages in one play with several children, lays out one figure, so that 
each brings in a particular part, &c. 

Finally, this infant play is not without its religious consecration. True, the 
child is not introduced to religion by committing to memory unintelligible Bible 
verses or hymns ; but when the child on Christmas beholds a representation of 
Christ in the manger it connects a joyful impression with the appearance of the 
Saviour of humanity. In such and other similar ways is laid in their tender hearts 
a deep foundation of religious sensibility. Tlie infant garden should not neglect 
the cultivation of a consciousness of God in the infant heart ; on the contrary, it 
should nurse the same. By taking the child into a God-pervaded nature — to 
the flowery sea of spring, the terrible magnificence of the storm, to the life of 
the rose, and the insect sporting out its joyful little life — there the child should 
feel God and find him in every flower and every star. From its relations to 
parents it should realize the Father of all the children in heaven and earth, and 
learn to love him and to keep his commandments by giving honor to truth, by 
doing the right, loving and practicing the good. The child should be influenced 
to express his feelings toward God, to excite and strengthen them by praying 
before him and with him in holy moments of life. " He who will early know 
the Creator," says Frobel, "must practice his power for a conscious exercise of 
the good, for doing good is the bond between the Creator and his work, and the 
conscious good action is the living union of man and God, the final point and 
eternal aim of all education." 

While the principles of Frobel's system were not approved by the Prussian 
minister of education, the Duke of Meiningen placed the castle of Marienthal at 
his disposal, in which, to his death, Frobel instructed teachers of infant gardens. 
The scholars received instruction in physiology, psychology, natural kistory, 
(especially botany,) history of education, the arts and plays for children, as 
drawing, plaiting, building, cutting, folding, coupling, &c. 
' Frobel died June 21, 1852, but not his work. To the activity of Midden- 



758 PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN PRUSSIA 

dorff, and Bertha de Billow after him, it is due that infant gardens flourish iu 
the north and south of Germany. They exist in Hamburg, Altona, Gotha, 
Sondershausen, Weimar, Frankenhausen, Erfurt, Meiningen, Eisenach, Ohrdruff, 
Apolda, Altenburg, Liibeck, Dresden, Gorlitz, Leipzig, Berlin, Stuttgart, &c. 
In Switzerland they have been revived since 1859 ; in Belgium they were 
introduced in 1857; in Holland they became known in 1858 ; in France they 
gained Marbeau — who founded the creches — and Madame Mallet ; in Spain, 
(Bilbao,) England, (London, Manchester, Dublin,) North America, (New 
York, Boston, Philadelphia,) and Russia, especially Finland, great interest is 
shown in the infant gardens. The •' Manuel Pratique des Jardins d'Enfants 
de Frederic Frochel, a I'usage des institutrices et des meres de famille, compose 
sur des documents allemands, par J. F. Jacobs, avec une introduction de Madame 
la Baronne de Marenholtz, (Bruxelles, 1859,") gives a complete insight into 
the infant garden ; the " Erziehung der Gegenwart," a pedagogic periodical, by 
Carl Schmidt, as well as the " Education Nouvelle." of Lausanne by Raouy, 
are devoted, since 1861, to the diffusion of Frobel's system. 

Michelet also recognized that the principles of Frobel are those upon which 
education must progress, when he says in his work, " La Femme :" " By a 
clear spiritual eye and his grand simplicity Frobel has found what the wise have 
hitherto sought in vain : the secret of education. Frobel's doctrine is the edu- 
cational truth of the age. His system is neither exterior nor pi-escribed nor 
arbitrary; it is drawn from the child itself; the child begins the history and 
creative action of humanity anew." 

In Frobel's infant garden are the ideas of present and future education in a 
circumscribed sphere ; for the first time the material of education is arranged in 
an organic manner, so that the future has only to add to Frobel's means of 
employment, which especially have regard to mathematics, mechanics, and draw- 
ing, the experimental physic, chemistry, and physiology — of course in accord 
with the pupil's degree of development — and that the popular school (and this 
is the great task of the future) should intimately connect itself in an organic 
relation to the infant garden. From the time in which this is done a new era 
in the development of popular schools will begin — a truly national education. 

The main principles of infant culture, as inculcated by Frobel and set forth 
by his admirers, are not new to thoughtful educatoi-s ; and similar methods and 
means, not so completely systematized or so early applied, have been tried in 
this country, but not always with due caution or with proper understanding of 
the infant nature. These views have already greatly modified the exercises and 
methods of our primary schools ; but there is still room for a lower or earlier 
grade of schools, and for places, methods and material aids of instruction similar 
to those of the Kindergarten, Mrs. Horace Mann and Miss E. P. Peabody, in their 
treatise on the subject (Boston, 1863) entitled " Moral Culture of Infancy and 
Kindergarten Guide,'" and recent letters of Miss Peabody, published in the 
" Herald of Health," have already inaugurated some movements in this direction. 



BOOKS FOR THE TEACHER'S LIBRARY. 

Epitcational Aphorisms : Thoughts and Suggestions on Education, by wise 
and good men in different ages and countries, methodically arranged with an 
Index to Authors and Subjects. From Dr. Wohlfarth's "■Pedagogical Treasure 
Casket" Republished from Barnard's ^'American Journal of Education." 



CONTENTS. 



Abklard 168 

Actuiil lile, 129 

/Escliylus 14, 43, 9!) 

Aiidroiniiclie 96 

AiK.riymuiis.. . 17, 19, 20, 28, 30, 48, 53, 129, 169 

Antoninus I'ius, 14, 188 

A()|ietite, 137 

Aretinns 26,110 

Aristotle,. . 4U, 42, 43, 74, 75, 76,79, 95, 96, 133, 
145, 157, 162, 187, 194, 197 

Art 165 

Aurelius Antoninus 44, 132 

Anrelius Augustinus t 133 

Auu;ustine, 51 

Bi.con, 47,144, 146, 147 

Busedow, 78,179 

Buur 108, 112, 114, 192 

Biiuer, (E,) 34, 57, .58 

Beday, 63 

Bendu 101 

Blmgavad Gita, 10 

Bible 

166 

, 93 

166 

187 

167 

65 

93 

151 

167 

. 9 

93 

166 

167 

102 

, 93 

187 

197 

17 

153 

158 

175 

16 

70 



Genesis, 9, 24, 

Exodus, 92, 

Deuteronomy, 

Sumuel, 

Psalms 9,69, 147, 166, 

Son of Sirncli, 

Ecclesiasticus 

Job 147, 

Proverbs, 93, 97, 

W isiioni of Solomon, 

Apocrypha — Tobit, 

Matthew, 9. 

Mark 

Luke, 69, 93, 

John 10 

Paul 10, 24,93, 97,147, 

Biihme, (J.,) 35, 

Bouterwek 

Bolingbroke, 

Books, 

Bretschneider, 

Bruno 

Buchner, (Christian,) 



Callimachus 162 

Campe 198 

Chinese 11,65,92, 162,194 

Charron, (P.,) 134 

Cicero, 13, 15,43,80,94,133,151,167, 

188, 194, 195, 196 

Channing, ( W. E.,) 165 

Character, 138 

Chrysippus 74 

Conienius 46,76,78,84,116,140 

Confucius, 10, 11,132, 167 

Czour-Vedam, 10 

Democritus 125, 139, 161, 163 

Diesterweg, 59 

Diodorus Siculus, 151 

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 153 

Dippolt, 143 

Discipline, 187 

Doederlein 59 



Early Training 75,173,189 Language, 141 



Education, its nature and value, 38 

Ehrenberg 113 

Epidaurus, 167 

Epicurus, 132 

Epictetus 11,43,132,168 

Everhard, 134 

Evangel of Nature, 155 

Euripides, 169 

Example, 194 

Feelings, 128 

Fellenberg ]64 

Female Education, 96 

Feiielon, 105 

Fischer, (J. A ,), 119, 120, 121, 125, 126, 130, 181 

Fichte 29 

Forster 87, 134, 135 

Frederick (the Great,) 155 

French Enclvclopedia, 62 

Froebel, ". 57, 118 

Fries, 25 

Fundamental Impulses, 20 

Galen, 76 

Garve, 56 

Geography, 150 

G izas 73 

Goethe 20, 90, 100, 106, 113, 161, 175, 199 

Grafe 57. 180 

Grnser, 55,58 

(.'reiling 48 

Greszler, (F. G.L.,) 148 

Greverus, 129 

Hanle 6 

Harnisch, 58 

Haulers, 153 

Hegel 55, 171, 192 

Helvetius, 87 

Hernsterhuis, 17 

Herder, . 17, 19, 30, 33, 50, 124, 136, 143, 150, 175 

Hermanuz, 193 

Heydenreich, 21,30,49, 134 

Hiacking, 92 

Hindoo Book, 10 

Hippel 72,122 

Hitopadesa, 10 

Home Education, 75 

Huffel, 37 

Humboldt, (W.Von) 20, lOO 

Indian Tale, 40 

Imagination, 124 

Impulses of Reason, 53 

Intellectual Culture, 116 

Iselin, 68 

Jncobi, (F.,) 37, 54, 56, 134, 135, 173, 199 

John 182, 186 

Juvenal, 194,195 

Kant, 48, 100, 13^-, 137, 191 

Knowing faculties, 116, 135 

Knowing j>cr««,'! Action 193 

Kohr 47 

Krause, 73 

Krug 23,60, 122, 123, 133 



EDUCATIONAL APHORISMS. 



Lnctantius 168 

Leibnitz 57, 133, 134, 168 

Livius 151 

Locke, 46, Ibl 

Lucion, 59, 151 

Luther, Ifi, 45, 67, 68, 78, 81, 84, 83, 85, 

95, 98, 134, 137, 141, 147, 152, 
163, 183, 188, 190, 191, 197. 

Man, as the Subject of Education, 9 

Mangelsdorf, 122 

Marie Louise Wilhelmlne, 18 

Melanctlion, 152 

Memory, 126 

Mencke lUli 

Menu, Laws of, 10 

Mendelssohn, 36, 48 

Michaelis, 91 

Milton 164 

Montaigne, 43, 46, 87, 152, 17 1 

Moral Training, 166 

Moris 24 

Moscheroscli, 71, 84, 95, 99, 104, 190, 198 

Moses Maiinonides, 133 

Music, 162 

Musonius, 14 

Nabbe, 37 

Napoleon Bonaparte, 48 

Nature, 165 

Natural Science, 148 

Nienieyer 52, 56, 62, 67, 72, 109, 111, 117, 

118, 119, 120, 121, 124, 126, 128, 13U, 
131, 132, 136, 138, 144, 149, 150, 156, 
157, 158, 160, 161, 164, 173, 176, 184, 
185, 197, 198, 199, 200. 

Obedience, 92 

Object Teaching, 117 

Oezer 106 

Parents and Teachers, 65, 190 

Perception 116 

Perictione, 94 

Persius, 14 

Pestalozzi, 50,88,150, 175,182 

Petrarch, 134 

Physical Education, 75 

Philosophy, Natural 157 

Philemon, 14 

Philo, 51 

Philosophic de la Nature 48 

Plato,... 12, 38, 43, 76, 78, 79, 94, 114, 139, 141, 

157, 162, 167, 170, 194 

PInutus 65 

Pliny 151 

Plutarch 39,40,42.66,77,81, 118, 127, 

133, 159, 188, 194, 195 

Poetry 153, 161 

Poleitz, 153 

Pythagoras,. 11, 12, 38, 42, 81, 96, 132, 162, 166 

Quinctilian, 39, 42, 74, 75, 81, 85, 94, 127, 

133, 151, 188, 195 

Raumer 104, 105, 107, 114, 115,179 

Reading 160 

Recreation, 189 

Reason 11, 132 

Reiidiard 03 

Religious Training, 131, 166 

Richter 27, 50, 97, 101, 104, 119, 127, i:!2, 

154, 164, 177, 178, 179, 199 

Ringwald, 95 

Robbelen, 148 

Rotteck, 61, 91 



Rousseau, 68, 80, 90, 131, 19 

Rudolphi, (Caroline,) 109 

Rueckert, 11, 73, 110, 177, 178, 179, 199 

Saadi 166 

Senses, 116 

Sailer 125 

Schelling, 36, 49 

Scherer, .... 63 

Schlosser, 139 

Schiller,... 16, 26, 50, 98, 100, 102, 110, 123, 128 
136, 196, 153, 163 

Schlenkert, (P. L.,) 17 

Schleiermacher, 101, 112 

Schmid, (C.C. E.,) 49,50 

Schneuber, 47 

Schottin, 30 

Schmid, (Karl,) 52 

Schwahe 73, 193 

Schwarz 35,53, 165 

Schroder, 90 

Schrack 156 

Schubert 27 

Seneca,. 13, 15, 39, 42. 61, 69, 81, 82, 94, 9.5, 1.33, 
145, 151, 158, 159, 189, 194, 196 

SiaoHio 92 

Simonides, 14, 158 

Socrates, 77,93,168, 169, 187 

Solon 76, 94 

Soldan 100 

State Lexicon, 61,91 

Starke, 34 

Stoy 59, 90,181, 193 

Stoics, 43 

Sturm 169 

Subjects and Means of Instruction 140 

Tegner ,. 144, 179 

Temperament 138 

Terentius, 14,65 

Tetens, 22 

Tetzner, 88 

Theano, 44 

Thomson, 153 

Thibaut 115 

Thucydides, 96 

Tischer 58, 149, 171, 172, 176 

Titteman, 155 

Tschuchi, 10 

Understanding, or thinking faculty, 127 

Uz, 21 

Valerius Ma.^imus, 65 

Von Ammon 24,54,68, 140,200 

Von Dalberg .36 

Von Haller, 22 

Von Gentz, 62 

Voss .,. 25, 48 

V irtue, 10, 132 

Wagner 137 

Weikard 60, 87 

VVieland, 50 

Will 137 

Wohlfarth, (J. F. T.,) 5 



Young, 27 

Zaieucus, 167 

Zschokke,.. 21, 22, 32, 33, 5), 95, 102, 105, 108. 

109, 112, 113, 142, 160, 169, 172, 

173, 174, 177, 199. 

Zenophon, 40 

Zollikofer 36 

Zoroaster, 10,11, 167, 17P 



BAMARFS EDUCATIONAL PUBLICATIONS. 



nici. 

A. B C Books and Primers 25 

A B C-ShooterK, and School Life in 15th Century. 25 

Abbenrodb, Teaching History and Geography.. 25 

Academies of New England 25 

AcQUAViVA, Ratio et Institutio Stndiorum 25 

Adams, J. Q., Normal Schools, Schools of Silesia 25 

Adult and Supplementary Schools 25 

AoAssiz, L., Educational Views 25 

Agricola, R., School Reform in the Netherlands 25 

Akroyd, E., Improving a Factory Popalation 25 

Albert, Prince, Science in Education 25 

Alcott, a. B., Schools as they were 50 

Alcott, William A., Memoir and Portrait 50 

Slate and Black-board Exercises 25 

Andrews, S. J., The Jesuits and their Schools.. 25 

Andrews, Lorin P., Memoir and Portrait 5ii 

Anglo- Saxon Language in Study of English 25 

Anhalt, System of Public Instruction 25 

ANSELM, and other Teachers of the 12th Century. 25 
Aphorisms on Principles and Methods of Educ'n2.50 

Arabic and Mohammedan Schools 25 

Aristotle, Educational Views 25 

Arithmetic, Methods of Teaching 25 

Abnold, Matthew, Public Schools In Holland. 25 

Secondary Schools in Prussia 50 

AnNOLD, Thomas K., Memoir and Portrait 50 

Arts and Science, Schools of 5.50 

AscnAM Roger, Memoir, and the Schoolmaster.. 50 

ApHBURTon, Lord, Teaching Common Thinj^s.. 25 

Austria, Public lustructon — Primary & Secondary 50 

Military Schools and Education 25 

Technical School? 25 

Baciie, a. D., National University 25 

Bacon, Francib Lord, Memoir and Influence... 25 

Essay on Education and Studies . 25 

Bacon, Leonard, Memoir of Hillhonse 25 

Baden, Syntem of Public Instruction 25 

Technical Schools 25 

Bailet, Ebenezer. Memoir and Portrait 50 

Barnard, D. D., Right of Taxation for Schools. 25 

Barnard, F. A. P., College Improvements 25 

Ele five Studies in College Course 25 

Barnard, J. G., The Problem of the Gyroscope. 25 

Barrow, Isaac, Studies and Conduct 25 

Baskdow, Memoir, and the Philantbropinum.... 50 

Bateman, N., Educational Labors and Portrait.. 60 

Bates. S. P., Memoir and Portrait 50 

Liberal Education 25 

Bates, W. G., Training of Teachers 25 

Bavaria, System of Piiblic Instruction 25 

Technical Schools 25 

Beecher, Catherinr E., Educational Views... 25 

Belgium. Syetemof Public Instruction 25 

Technicil and Special Schools 25 

Bell, Andrew, Memoir and Educational Views 50 

Benedict, St., and the Benedictines 25 

BENEiii-;. F. E, Pedagogical Views 25 

Berlin, Educational Institutions 25 

Bible and Rtligioa in Public Schools 25 

Bingham, Caleb, Educational Work 25 

Bishop, Nathan, Educational Work and Portrait 50 

Blockm AN, Pe-iialozzi's Labors 25 

Boccaccio, nnd Educational Reform In Italy 25 

BoDLEiuii, Sir Thomas, Studies and Conduct 25 

Booth, J., Popular Education In England 25 

Bo'ton, Educational In'?titutions 50 

Botta, v.. Public Instruction in Sardinia 25 

BouTWELL, George, Educational Work 60 

BowEM. F.,Memoirof Edmund Dwiaht 50 

Brainerd, T.. Home and School Training In 1718 25 

Brinsly, J., Ludus Literarius, 1627 25 

Brockett, L. P., Idiots aud their Training 25 

Brooks, Chas.. Educational Vork and Portrait. . 50 

Brougham, Henry Lord. Edncational Views... 25 

Brunsviick, System of Public Instruction 25 

BccKHAM, M. H.. English Language 25 

Buckingham, J. T., Schools as tliey were in 1800 25 

B CKLEY, J. W., Teachers' Associations 2") 

Burgess, George, Religion in Public Schools. . . 25 

BuuROWES, T. II., Memoir and Portrait 50 

History of Normal Schools in Pennsylvania.. . 25 

Burton, W., District School a* it was 25 

Boshnell, II., Early Training', Unconscious Icflu. 25 



Htoa 

Barnard, Henry, Educational Activity.. 8.60 

Address to the People of Connecticut, 1838. ... 25 

Common Schools in Connectirui, 1-38-42 1.00 

Public Schools of Rhode Island, 1843^9 3.50 

Higher Education in Wisconsin and Marj'land 50 

U. S. Commissioner of Education 1867-8 5.50 

Special Report on District of Columbia 5.50 

Special Report on Technical Education 5 50 

Sptcial Report on National System" 5.50 

Conn. Common School Journal, 183'<-424v. each 1.25 

Educational Tracts, Number I. -XII., each 25 

Journal of R I. Institute 1845-49 3v 1.25 

Documents on Popular Educaiion, I.-IV., each 1.00 
American Jour, of Education, lfe55-73. 24v., each5.00 

do. International Series, 1874-5, Iv 5.00 

General Index, with the Volume Indexes... 2. 50 

Education in Europe in 1854 1.50 

National Systems of Education, lOv., each 5 50 

Elementary and Secondary Schools, 4v., each.. 5.50 

I. The German States 5.60 

II. Continental European Stales 5.50 

Til. Great Britain 5.50 

IV. American States 5.50 

Superior Instruction— ^ai^icw of 1875, 2v 7.00 

Part I.— Historical Development 3.50 

1 . The University— Authorities 25 

2. Do. in Greece, Alexandria, and Rome 60 

5. Christian Schools— Cathedral and Abbey.. 60 
4. Teaching Orders of the Catholic Church.. 60 

6. Mediseval Universities (Sat'ig'Jiy) 60 

6. Universities— Past and Present (Z)o/H»g'«r.) 60 

7. Universities and Pohtechnlc Schools 25 

8. The College in Universities 25 

9. American College & European University. . 50 
Part II.— Superior Instruction as Organized .5.50 

1. Germany and Switzerland 8..50 

2. France, Italy 1.00 

3. Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Nor'y. Swen 50 

4. Russia, Turkey, Greece, Spain, Portugal.. .50 

5. England, Scotland, and IrtlaLd 1.00 

6. American States l .00 

Professional and Special Schools. 6v., each — 5.50 

1. Science and National Industries 5.50 

Ditto Great Britain 2 50 

Ditto UnitedStates 3.00 

2. Military Schools and Education 5.50 

3. Normal Schools and Professional Training 5.50 

4. Female Schools and Education 5.50 

5. Reformatory and Preventive Agencies 5.50 

.Supplementary Schools and Agencies 5.50 

jlducational Biography, 6v., each H.rjO 

American Teachers, with 21 portraits 3.50 

do. do. second f^erii ?, 30 portraits 3.50 

Penefactors of American Education. 28 port's 8.50 
Oermin Educational Reformers and Teachers 3.50 
Entrli-h, French, and other eminent teachers3.50 

Swiss Teachers and Educators 3.50 

Tribute to Gallandet, and Deaf Mute Inst ruction 2.50 
Ezekiel Cheever. & the Free Schools of N. Eng. 1 00 

Armsm( ar, — a Memorial of Samuel Colt 5 50 

School Codes— State, Municipal. Institutional 3.50 

School Architecture, with 600 illustrations 6..50 

Practical Illustrations 1.00 

Object Teaching, Oral and other Meth. of Inst. 3.50 
American Pedagogy, Principles and Methods.. 3.50 
Euglich Pedaaoyty. " " ..3 50 

do. Secnrtd Series. ..3.50 

German Pedagogy, " " ..3.50 

French Pedagogy, " " ,.3.50 

Swiss Pedagogy " " ..3 00 

Eilucational Aphorisms and Suggestions 3.50 

Sudies and Conduct 3.50 

Educational Asi-ociations- National, and State3.50 

Connecticut Educational Institutions 3. .50 

Connecticut School Fund— Historical 25 

Common Schools, as they were before 1800 l.Oii 

do. in 1870 1.00 

Compnlf^ory School Attendance 1.00 

Conpititutional I'ruvision respecting Schools 25 
School Status of Freedmen & Colored Children 1.00 

Providence Schools, Documentary History 5o 

Hartford Public High School, Esrly History ... 25 
Ttachers' Institutes, Contributions to History. 25 



BOOKS ON EDUCATION. 



Bbooks, Edward, Memoir and Portrait 50 

Cadt, I. F., Method of Claspical Instruction 25 

Calderwoud, H., Teactiing, Its Ends and Means 2i 

Caldwell, ('., B.lucaiion in North Carolina 25 

Cambrid:^e Univert-ity. The Undergraduate 25 

Camp, D. N., Memoir anc Ponrait 50 

Calkins, N. A., Object Teacniug 25 

Carltle, Thomas, University Studies 25 

Letter on Reading. 25 

Carter, James G., Memoir and Portrait 50 

Essay on Teachers' Seminaries in 1824 25 

Catechism of Methods of Teaching 50 

•Catholic Church, Schools and Teaching Orders.. l.Oi) 

Cecil, Sir William, Advice to his Son 25 

Channingj, W., Teachers & their Education (1832» 25 

Hints on Self Cultare 25 

Chatham, Lord, Letters to his Nephew 25 

Cheever, Ezekiel, & Free Schools of N. England 50 

Chesterfield, L'>kd, Studies and Conduct 25 

Choate, Rupus, Books and Reading 25 

Christian Schools, Karl iest Established 25 

Cities, Systems of Public Schools 2.50 

Clarke, H. G , Principles &M)de9 of Ventilation 35 

Clark, T. M., Ediicition for the Timrs 25 

CoGSESHALL, W. J., Ohio System of Pab. Schools 25 

CoLBURN, Dana P., Memoir and Portrait 50 

CoLBURN, W., Educational Work, and Portrait.. 50 

Cole, D., Method of Cl issical Education 25 

CoLET, J.. Educational Views and St. Paul sc iiol 50 
CoLMAN, Henry, Agricultural Schools in France 25 
CoMBNius, A., E«'.ucational Labors and Piiuciples 50 

Colleges, Origin and Use in Universities 25 

College Code of Honor 25 

Competitive Examinations for Public Service.. 25 

Conduct — Susrse^tions by Eminent Men 3 50 

Connecticut, Etl'icatioiial Institutions,.., 3.50 

Conversation.— SuL'gestions by Bacon and others 25 

Conversational Method. 25 

Corporal Punishment — Barbarism of Discipline.. 25 
CouTTs, Miss BanoETT, Prize Scheme for Girls. 25 
CowDERT, M. F., Moral Training in Pub. Si-.h'ots 25 
Cowley, A., Plan of Philosophical College, 1662 25 
CowpiiR,WM., The Tirocinium, Review of Schools 25 

Crabbb, Gko., Schools of the Borough 25 

Crime and Education 25 

CuRRiB. James, Methods of Early Education 25 

Dana, J. D.. Science and Scientific Schools 25 

Dawson, J. W., N-it. Hist, in its Ediicat. Aspects 25 

Day. Henry N.. Enttlish Composition 25 

Deaf Mute Ini'titutions and Instruction 25 

DeLaSalle, A., Memoir & the Christian Brothers 50 

Denmarlc, Public Instruction 25 

DeQuincy, Studies and Conduct 2') 

Letters on tie Art of Conversation 25 

DbMe rz, M., Colonies for Juvenile Offe'^dcrs 25 

Dickinson, J. W.. Philos. & Methods of Teaching 25 

DiESTERWEG, Memoir. 25 

Catechism of Methods of Teaching 50 

School Discipline and Plans of Instruction.... 25 

Intuitional and Speaking Exercises 25 

Dinter, G. F., Memoir 25 

Disraeli. B. , Studies and Conduct 25 

Dixon, W. Hepworth. — Swiss Schools in 1870... 25 
DoANB, George W., The State and Education... 25 

DOllinqkh, Universities, Past and Present 25 

Dominic, St., and thp Dominicans 25 

Donaldson, James, Edu. in Prussia and England 25 

Drawing, Methods of Teaching 50 

D0AI, A., German Schools in the United States. 25 

DucFETiAUX, Agricultural Reform Schools 25 

DUPFIELD, D. B., Education a State Duty 25 

Dunn, H., Methods of the B >rough-road Schools. 25 

Durfeb, Job, R. I. Idea of Government 25 

DauuY, Stcjndary Special Schools in France 25 

Djpanloup, Sudiom Women 25 

Dwight, Edmund, Memoir and Portrait 50 

DwiGHT, Timothy, Memoir 25 

Aca-:eray at Green Farms 25 

Yale Collese in 1814 25 

Educational Biographies, with Portrait* of over 
100 Eminent Tearhfrs, Educa'ors, and Ben- 
efactors of Educators, eacd 50 

Educational Trar's, Numbers I. -XII., each 25 

Edu. Documents for Gen. Circulation, I. -IV. each 1.00 

Education and tbp State 25 

Education Defined 25 



E DWARDS. Richard, Memoir and Portrait. ...... 50 

Normal Schools 25 

Elt it. Sir Thomas. Tue Governour 25 

E.MERSON, Geo. B. Educat. Labors, with Portrait 50 

Memoria' on Normal Schools, 1837 25 

Mural E'iucat.on 25 

England, Elementary Schools and Methods 3.50 

Public or Endowed Schools 25 

Navigation Schools 25 

Universities of Oxford and Cambridge 50 

Military Schools 25 

Scientiflc and Technical Schools 2.50 

English E-timate of S wi<8 Public Schools 25 

Public Schools of the United Slates 25 

English Pedagogy, First Series 3.50 

Second Series 8.50 

Bkamus, Memoir and Educational Works 50 

Classical Studies 25 

Ernest the Pious, Educational Works 25 

European Estimate of Ami rican Schools 25 

EvEK'iTT, B, Educational Views, and Portrait... 50 

John Lowell and the Lowell Lectures 25 

John Harvard and his Benefaction 25 

Uses of Astronomy 25 

Address on Normal Schools, 1839 25 

Everett, W., The Cambridge System of Study. 25 

Pairchild, Coeducation of the Sexes 25 

Felbiger, J. J., EdHcational Labors in Austria.. 25 
Fellenberg. Memoirand Principles of Education 25 

Felton, C. C, Memoirand Portrait 50 

Characterist c-" of American Colleges 25 

Female Schools and Education 5.50 

Fenelon. Memoirand Female Education 25 

Fichte, J. H. von, Frobel's Eductional System. 50 
Fliednbr, Ins. for Deaconesses at Kai^e^l^wenh 25 

Forbes, E., Educational Uses of Museums 25 

PowLE, W. B, Memoir and Portrait 50 

Fowler, W. C, The Clergy and Common Schools 25 

France. System of Public Instruction 2.50 

The Univers ty of Puris 25 

The Univeisiiy of France 25 

Technical and Military Schools 3.50 

Special. Secondary JSciiools 25 

French Teachers and Pedagogy 3.50 

Francis, St., and the Franciscans 25 

Franke, a. H., Educational Views and Labors. . 25 

Franklin, B.. Maxims of Poor Richard 25 

Frederic the Great, as School Reformer 25 

School Codes of 1764 25 

Free Schools of New England, Historical Data. . 25 

French Schools and Pedagogy 5.50 

Froebel, The Kindergatten System 25 

Froudb, University Studies 25 

Fuller, Tho.mas, The Good Schoolmaster... .... 25 

Gallaudet. Thomas H., Memoir and Portrait.. 50 

Plan for a Teachers' Seminary in 1824 25 

Gammell, W., Memoir of Nicholas Brown 25 

Garfield. James A.. Education a National Duty 25 
Gaston, William, Advice to College Graduates. 25 

Gerard-Groote, and the Hieronymians 25 

Germany, National System and Pedagogy, 5v. 

Primary and Secondary Schools 5 50 

Technical and Military Schools 3 50 

Universities. Gymnasia, & Polytechnic Schools 3.50 
Educational Reformers— Ratich,ComeniuB, etc. 3.5ii 

Modern German Pedagogy 3.50 

Gesner, J. M., Educational Views 25 

GiLMAN. D. C, Scientific Schools 25 

Gladstone, W. E., Educational Views 25 

Goethe, Educational Training and^Views 25i 

Cultivation of Reverence 2r> 

Goldsmith, Oliver, Essay on Education 2'i 

Goodrich, S. G., Schools as they were in 1800. .. 2j 
Goodrich, W. H., Plea for Extended Education. 2j 

GOttlngen University 2i 

Gould, B. A., The American University 2i 

Graser, System of Instruction 2> 

Greece, Ancient, Schools and Education 2; 

Greece, Modern. System of Public Instruction. . . 2 • 

Greek Lansjuage, Subject of School Study Si 

Greene, S. S., Object Teaching 2; 

Educational Duties of the Hour 2> 

Gregory, J. M., The Problem of Education. . 2i 

<4riscom, John, Memoir .ind Portrait M 

GuizoT, Ministry of Public Instruction in France 51' 
Gulliver, J. P., Norwich Free Academy 25 ■ 



The above Treatises have all appeared as separate articles in Barnard's American Journal of Education. Any Book or Pamphlet on the List will Iw 
Vent by mail, postage paid, on reoeirint; the price in postage stamps or monej order. 9d orders of ^20 a discount of 20 per cent. Trill be marie. 

Address H.B., Bartford.Cmn. January, Xi^i■ 



BOOKS ON EDUCATION. 



IlAiE, Sir Matthew, Stndies and Conduct 25 

Hall, S. R., Educational Labors and Portrait. . . 50 

Hamann, J. G., Pedatrogical Views 25 

Hamil, S. M., Scbool Discipline 25 

Hamilton, J., and tiie Hamilioniau Method 25 

Hamilton, SirW., Mathematics 

The College in the University 25 

Hammond, C, New England Academies as 

Hanover, System of Public Schools 25 

Hart, J. M., The American Stndent at GOttingen 25 

Hart, J. S., Memoir and Pen rait 50 

Characteristics of a Normal School 25 

Anglo-Saxon in the Study of English 25 

Hartlib, S., Planof College of Husbandry in 1651 25 

H.AtJT, v., and the Instruction of the Blind 25 

Haven, Joseph, Mental Science as a Stndy 25 

Hawes, Joel, Female Education 25 

Hedge, N., hcbools as they were 25 

Heikel, Felix, Public Instruction in Finland.. 25 

Helfenstein. J., MediiBval Universities 25 

Henry, J., Common Schools 25 

Henry, Joseph, Philosophy of Education 25 

Hentschell, E., Teacking Singing 25 

Teaching Drawing 25 

Herbert, J. F., Pedagogical Views. 50 

Herder, Life and Educational Views 25 

Hesfe-Cassel, System of Public Schools 25 

Hesse-Darrastadt, System of Public Schools 25 

Hill, M. D., Ileiormatory Schools 25 

Hill, T., True Order of Studies 25 

Hilliard, G. S., Boston Public Librarr 25 

Hillhou^e. J. A., Literary Cull ure in Republics. 50 

Hints and Meihoisfor the Use of Teach ug 25 

Hodjins, J. George, Education in Upper Canadiw 25 

HoLBROOK, J., Educational Labors and Portrait. 50 

The American Lvceum 25 

Holland, System of Pnbliclnstructioa 25 

Hood, 'i'ho.mas, The Irish Schoolmaster'' 25 

HooLE, C, The Old Art of Teaching, I6.W 25 

Hopkins, M., Educational Labors and V)evvs 1 00 

Howe, S. G., Memoir and Portrait 50 

Laura Bridgman 25 

Humbolt, Wm. Von, Studies for Old Age BO 

Humphrey, IIeman, Normal Schools 25 

Common Schools as they were 25 

Huntington, F. D., Unconscious Tuition 25 

College Prayers 25 

Huxley, T. H., Science in Schools 25 

Ignatius Loyola, and the Schools of the Jesnita 25 

Illiteracy in the United States 25 

Ireland, Euglich Educational Policy 25 

National Schools 25 

Endowed Schools 25 

Universities 25 

Italy, System of Public Instruction 25 

Revival of Classical L'jarning 50 

MedifEval Uuivernities 25 

Inlant School and Kindergarten 25 

Jacobs, F.. Method of Teaching Latin 25 

Jacotot, L . Memoir and Method of Instruction. 25 

Jameson. Mr'.. S'cial Occupations of Women... 25 

Jauvis', E , MiPdirected Education and lonanity. 25 

Jkkomb, St.. EiJucaii(mof Daughters 25 

Jesuits, Society and Schools of the 25 

JiswELL, F. s., Teacliing as a Profession 25 

Johnson, Samuel. Educational Views 2 

Johnson. W. R., Educational Labors, & portrait 25 

Julius, Dr., Normal Schools iu Prussia 50 

KEE.NAN. P. J., Organization of Irish Schools.... 25 

KiNDEitMANN School Relorm in Bohemia. 25 

Kingsbury, John, Memoir and Portrait 25 

Knight. Charles, Economical Science 50 

Kiiucpatrick. B., Education in Greece & Rome. 25 

Key, Joseph, Prussian Schools 50 

Kuijsi, Life and Educational Labors 25 

Lalok, J., Nature and Objt'cts of Education. ... 25 

Lancaster, Jos., Memoir and Monitnrisl Schools 25 

^Lawrence, A., and Lawrence Scinniific School.. 25 

Latin LingUHge, Methods of Teaching 50 

Leigh, E., Illiteracy in the Unit'd States 25 

LbWis, Dio. The New Gymnastics 25 

Lewis, Samuel, Memoir and Portrait ^0 

Lewis, T., Methods m Teac ing Gretk and Latin 85 

LiNDSLEY, Philip, Memoir and Portrait f>0 

LocKB, John. Thoughts on Education 1.00 



Lonqstreet, Schoo'B as they were 5n Georgia. . . 25 
LoTHRop, S. K., W. Lawrence & N.E. Academies 25 

Lowe, Robert, University Studies 25 

Lowell, John, and the Lowell Lectures 25 

Luthbk, Martin, Memoir and Views on Educat. 50 
Lyon, Mary, Principles of Mt. Holyoke;Seminary 50 

Lytton, Sir E. B., Studies and Conduct 25 

Money, its Acquisition and Uses 25 

Lycurgus, and Spartan Education 25 

Lyell, Sir Charles, Physical Science in Educat. 25 

Macaulay, Lord T. B., Educational Views 25 

Mansfield, E. D., Military Acad, at Wesi Point 25 

History of National Land Grants to Ohio 25 

Marcel, C, Conversational Method in Language .50 

March, F. A., Study of English Language 25 

Maria Theresa, Educational Reforms.. -5 

Marion, General. Free Schools for Republics.. 25 

Mann, Horace. Memoir and Portrait 50 

Lectures and Reports 5.50 

Teachers' Motives 25 

Professional Training of Teachers 25 

College Code of Honor 25 

Fourth of July Oration, 1842 25 

Manual Labor in Education 25 

Mason, Lowell, Memoir and Portrait 50 

Mason, S. W., Physical Exercises in School 25 

Masson, D.. College and Self- Education 25 

Milton's Home, School, and CoUeee Education 25 

May, S. J.. Educational Work, wirh Portrait 50 

.VIayhew. Ira, Educational Work with Portrait. 50 

McCrie, Dr., Universities of Scotland 25 

McElligott, J. N.. Debating in School Work... 25 

Meierotto, Method of Teaching Latin 35 

Melancthon, p., Memoir and Educational Work ' 

MeWrey Reform School, Rise and Progrets 25 

Mill, J. S.. University Studies 25 

Milton, John, Tractate on Education 25 

Home. School, and Univrrsity Training 25 

MoLiNEUX, E. L., Military Exercises in Schools. 25 

Monitorial Syf-tem and Method 25 

Montaigne, Educational Views 25 

Montesquieu, Educaiionnl Views 25 

More, Sir Thomas, Educational Views... 25 

Mohrison, T.. School Management 50 

MuLCASTER, R., Petitions and Elementaire 25 

Murray. J. N., English Policy in Irish Education 25 

Mui'ic, Method for Common Schools 25 

Neander, M., Educational Views 25 

Newman, Universitv Education 25 

NiEBUHR. Method of Philological Stndv 25 

NiEMEYER, Aphorisms (other German Educators) 2. .50 

NissEN, H., Public Schools in Norway 25 

Northend. E., Memoir and Portrait 50 

Norwial Schools and Teach. Sem.. Ed. of 1854. 2.00 

Norwich Free Academy 95 

Oberlin, J. F.. EducatioDal Work 25 

Oiiject Teaching, and other Methods 3. .50 

Oral Methods 50 

Olmstead. D., Memoir and Portrait 50 

Di'inocratic Tendencies of Science 25 

Timothy Dwight— a Model Teacher 25 

OvERBERO, B , Educational Views 25 

Owen, R., Educational Views 25 

Oxford University in 1873-4 25 

Page, D. P., Memoir and Portrait .^0 

Pouring In and Drawing Out Methods 25 

Paris, The 01(1 Unversity 25 

Supf-rior Normal School 25 

Polytechnic Schools 50 

Parr', oamuel, Edncatioiial View^. 25 

Partridge. A., Educational Work and Portrait. 50 

Pattison. Prussian Normal Schools 25 

Payne, Joseph. Science and Art of Education., 25 
Peabody. GEeHGE. Educational Benefactions... 25 

Peirce. B. K.. Reformatory for Girls 25 

Peirce, Cyrus, Memoir and Portrait fO 

Pestalozzi, Memoir and Portrait 150 

Leonard and Gertrude 1.00 

Evcnintr Hour of a Hermit 25 

Pestalozzi, and Pestalozziardsm 3..50 

Pestalozzi, Fellenberg and Wehrii 25 

I^etrarch, Dante, and BoccAcio 25 

Petty, Sir W., Plan of a Mechanical Co lege, 1647 25 

Phelps, Almira L.. Memoir and Portrait 25 

Phelps. W. F., Memoir and Portrait 50 



The aliove Treatl3e9 bave all appeared ai separate articles in 
Ht by mail, postage paid^ on receiving the price in poatage Btamps c 
AddntM a. B., Hart/ord.Conn. 



;arnar3'< American Journal of Education. Any Book or Pamphlet on the list will b< 
aoaej older. On orders of $50 a discount of SO per cent. trlH be made. 

January^ 1676. 



BOOKS ON EDDCATION. 



Payne, A., The Science and Art of Education. 25 

Philbkick, John D., Memoir and Portrait nO 

Work lor the National Teachers' Apfociation. 25 

Report on Boston Public Schoolp, 1874 50 

Platter, T., Scbuol Life in t he 15ia Century 25 

Plctauch, Ediicationiil Views 25 

PoMBAL, Marquis, Educa. Work in Portugal... 25 

Port Koyalists, Ediicaii >nal Vie>vp 25 

Porter, J. A., I'lan of au Agricnliural College.. i5 

Porter, Noah, Prize Essay on Schoi'l Reform . . 25 

Barnard's Educational Activity in Cniu. «& R. I 50 

Portugal, System of Public Insi ruction 25 

Potter, Alonzo, Mmnoir and Portrait 50 

Consolidation I if American Colleges 25 

Potter, E. R., ReliL'ion in Public tjrhools 60 

PoucHET, M., Freiic't View of Ger. Universities 25 

Pru-sia, System of Public Schools 3.00 

1. Prlm'iry Schools 50 

2. Secondary Schools 50 

3. Universities 50 

4. Technical Schools 50 

5. Military Schools 50 

Piblic Schools, Official Exposition in 1856 50 

Quick, Eiucaiional Re'ormer* — Jacotot 25 

QuiNTiLi an. Educational Views 25 

Rabelais, Educational Views 25 

Ramus, Peter, Memoir and Educational Views . 25 

Randall, Henry S.. School Libraries 25 

Randall, S. S., Memoir and Portrait 50 

Raphall. M. L., Education among the Hebrews 25 

Ratich, Educational Views 50 

Rauher, Karl Von, German Universities 2.50 

Early Chili ihood 25 

Methods of Teaching Litin 25 

Methods of Teaching Arithmetic 2i 

Physcai Education 25 

Education of Girls 50 

Educational Revival in Italy 25 

Progressives of the 17Lh Century S5 

Ratich, Cmenlus and B.;sedow 1.00 

Loyola and Schools of the Jesuits 25 

Raumer, Rudolf, Instruction in German 25 

Ravaisson, b\. Instruction in Drawing 25 

Retormator\ and Preventive School-< & Agencies 1.50 

Renan,E., German viewsof French Education.. 25 

Rendu, E., Prussian & French School Expenses. 25 

Reuchlin, and Education in the 16th century 25 

Rhode Island Institute of Inytruction 25 

Richards, W. F.. Manual of Methods 50 

RicKOFP, A. J., Memoir and Portrait 50 

RiBCKE. Pnil iBophy of Early Education 25 

Rider, Admiral, Navigation Sc hools for England 25 

Ross, W. P., Catechetical Method 25 

Rousseau, Memoir and Educati rial Viows 25 

RoLLiN, Charles, Education of You ih 50 

Russell, ScoTT,Technical UniversiiyfoiEngland 25 

isystematic Technical Education 25 

Rusf-ELL, William, Memoir and Portrait 50 

Normal Training 1.50 

Le2;al Recognition of Teaching as a Profession 25 

Russia. — Syctera of Public Instruction 25 

Military and Naval Education ; 25 

Univeri'ities 25 

Ryerson, Edqerthn, Memoir and Portrait 50 

Savi<;ny, Universities of the Middle Ages 50 

Saxony, System of Public Instruction 25 

Secondary and Supeiior Instruction 25 

Technical and Speci'il Sf-hools 25 

i3axon Principalities, Public Instruction 25 

Jsarmibnto, Memoir and Portrait 60 

The Schoolmaster's Work 25 

School Architectui-e, Rovirt d Edition, with 500 111. 5..50 

School Architecture, Practical Illustrations 1.00 

Do. Rural and Ungraded Schools 50 

Do. City and Graded Schools 1.00 

Do. Primary and Infant Schools 50 

Do. Public High Sfhools 50 

Scotland, System of Public I nstrnction 50 

Si'condary Schools and Universities 1.00 

Sbeley. J., Cambridge Sys cm of EximlDatlors 25 

Seguin, Treatment and Training 01 1 li'its 25 

Seton, S. S., Schools as t hey were 60 Years Ago 25 

Sheldon, E. A, Object Teaching 25 

Shknstone, W.,The Schoolmistress 25 

SlLJSTROM, P. A, American Schools 25 

SiMONsoN, L., Cadet Syet lu In Swi'zerland 25 

Smith. ELBiiiDGE. Norwich Free ArHdemy 25 

Spencer, Herbert, Thoughts on Education 50 



PBtOI. 

Southey, Robeiit, Home Edncation 25 

Dr. Dove, and the Schoolmaster of Ingleton. . . 6 1 

Spkague, W. B., Influence of Tale College 25 

Si) lin. System ot Public Instruction. 25 

■^piiRzuRiM, E'lucaiional Views 25 

Stanley, Lord, Lyceums and Popular Education 25 

State and Education — The American Doctrine. . . 25 

Stearns, B., Early History of Normal Schools.. ?5 

Stow, David, Gallery Training Lesson 25 

Stowe, Calvin E., Memoir and Portrait 60 

Teachers' Seminaries 25 

*5turm,John, Educational Views 25 

Sullivan. O., Teaching the Alphabet 25 

Sweden and Norway, Public Instruction 25 

Swett, John, Educational Labors and Portrait.. 50 

Swift, Jonathan, Manners and Conversation. . . 25 
Switzerland.— Public Instruction in each Canton 1.50 

Military, and Cadet System 25 

Sybel, H. Von, The German University 25 

Tainsh, E. C, Prize Essay on Education & Crime 25 

Tappan, H. p.. Memoir and Portrait 50 

Educational Development of Europe 25 

Tarbox, J. N., American Education Society, 25 

Taylor, Henry, True Uses of Wealth ., 25 

Text Books, Catalogue of 1.00 

Thayer, Gideon F., Memoir and Portrait. . . 50 

Letters to a Young Teacher 50 

TiLLiNGHAST, NICHOLAS, Memoif and Portrait. . . 50 

Town, Salem, Schools as they were 25 

Trotzendorf, Educational Views 25 

Tubingen University 25 

Tucker, George, Educational Census of 1840. . . 25 

Turkey, Schools and School Code 25 

Tyndall, Science in Education 25 

Unconscious Influence— Bushnell 25 

Unconscious Tuition— Huntington 25 

United States, Systems of Pub'lic Instruction 5.50 

Common Schools as they were about 1800 1 .00 

Common Schools in 1870 1.00 

Colleges and Universities 1.00 

Military and Naval Schools 1.00 

Normal Schools 3.50 

Universities anddilleges 5.50 

University Life— Past and Present 50 

Deposition, Pennalism, Landmannschaften 50 

Tripos, Praevaricator, Terrte Filius 50 

Vail, T. H., Methods of Using Books 25 

Vassar, M., Memoir and Portrait 50 

Vehkli, J., Indnstrial Elemcntin Scho«Is 25 

Ventilation and Warming of School houses 25 

Vienna, Educational Institutions 25 

ViVEs, L., Memoir and Educational Views 25 

Wadsworth, James S., Memoir and Portrait.. .. 50 

Washington, George, Rules of Conduct 25 

National Education 25 

Wayland. Frances, Menmir and Piirtiait 50 

Intellectual Education — Institun Address 25 

Webster, Daniel, Educational Views 25 

Websteh, Noah, Educational Views 25 

Wells, W. H., Memoir and Portrait 50 

Methods in English Grammar 25 

West Point Military Acadfmy 25 

Wuately, a.. Annotations on Bacon's Essays... 25 

Whewell, W., Educational Views 25 

White, E.E., Normal Schools for Ohio 25 

Nation;! 1 Bureau of Education 25 

White, S. H., National Bureau of Education 2.5 

Wichern, T. H.. German Reformatory Schools.. 50 

Wickersham, Educational Work and Portrait. . . 50 

Education in Recocstrnctien 25 

WiLLAR >. Mrs. Emma, Memoir and Portrait 50 

Wii SON, J. M., Science in Rugby Sehool 25 

William of Wykeham and St. Mary's College 25 

WiLLM, J.. Teachers' Conferi nces and Libraries. 25 

WiMMER, H., Special Schools in Saxony 25 

Public Instruction in Dresden 25 

Wines, E. C, Memoir and Portrait 50 

Winterbotham, W., American Education in 1796 25 

Wirt, William, Professional Studies— Law. ... 26 

Wolf, T. A., E 'ucational Views 25 

Wotton, Si.; Henry, Educational Views 25 

Wurtemberg. Sysieaaof Public Instruction 25 

Technical Schools 25 

WooDBRiDGE, W. C, Memo=rai:d Portrait 60 

Wykeham and St. Mary College 25 

Young, Thomas, Manual for Infant Schools 25 

Zurich, Cantonal School Code and System 25 

Federal Polytechnic University 25 



Tho above Treatises have all appeared a^ separate artioles In Caroard*fi American Journal of Education. Any Boole or Pamphlet on the List will I* 
■eat by mail, postage paid, on reoeiviog the price in poatage stamps or mouey order. Oa orders of $20 a diacouDt of 20 pec cent, will bo made. 

Aldrau II. D., ilartford,Ccmn- January, ie7£. 



steiger's kindergarten publications 



765 



KINDERGARTEN PUBLICATIONS. 

Henri/ Barnard. Kindergarten and Child 
Culture Papers. Cloth, |3.50 

Mrs. IStUv. Berrtj and Madame Micliaelis. 
60 Kindergarten Songs and Games. With 
Music. Paper, $0.50; cloth, $0.90 

Second Series. With Music. 

Paper, $0.50; cloth, $0.90 

J'. F. BorscUitzhy. Kindergarten - Lieder 
with German and English Words. Contain- 
ing the 33 Songs in Range's Guide. Arranged 
■with an Accompaniment of Second Voice 
and Pianoforte Guidance (ad lib.). $3.50 

*Esra S. Varr. Child Culture. An Address. 
Paper, $0 06 

tTatncs Carrie, The Principles and Practice 
of Early and Infant School Education, with 
an Appendix of Infant School Hymns, and 
Songs with appropriate melodies. Cloth, $2.00 

* Adolf Doiial. The Kindergarten. A Manual 
for the Introduction of Fraibel's System of 
Primary Education into Public Sckonls, and 
for the Use of Mothers and Private Teachers. 
With 16 plates. Cloth, $1.00 

Therese locking. Rdthsel fUr Kindergarten 
und Ilaus. Boards, $0.35 

Therese Focking. Frmbel's Mutter- und 
Koselieder. Boards, $1.65 

*Fraibel's Kindergarten Occupations for the 
Family. Each in an elegant and strong 
Paper Box, containing Material, Designs, 
and Instruction. 

1. Stick-taying. $0.75 

2. Net-work Drawing. $0.75 

3. Perforating (Pricking). $0.75 

4. Weaving [Braiding). $0.75 
6. Embroidering. $0 75 

6. Cork ior leas) Work. $0.75 

7. Plaiting (Interlacing Slats). $0.75 

8. Ring-laying. $0,75 

9. Intertwining Paper. $0.75 
10. Cutting Paper. $0.75 
11&12. Tablet-laying. (A Double Box.) $1.50 

These Boxes are primarily intended for 
children who are unable to attend a Kinder- 
garten regularly, and also as a substitute for 
toys and playthings generally. Stated more 
precisely, however, their design is, to provide 
children of 3 years and over with instruct- 
ive and quiet amusement, and to quicken 
their intellect without wearying the brain — 
to inculcate manual skill, artistic taste, a ready 
appreciation of results, and, consequently, a 
love of learning and application — to train 
children's minds through apparent play and 
recreation, while they are the means of 
producing little presents — to prepare children 
for school, and render home instruction easy 
and entertaining, without requiring constant 
attention. 

J8®- (Steiger's Sample Cards of Work that 
may be produced by means of, or from, 
the material, etc , of the Frabel's Kinder- 
garten Occupations for the Family. Nos 
1—12, $0.75 net.) 

Friedrich Frmhel. Die Padagogik des Kin 
dergartens. Gedanken Fr. Fra-bel's iiber das 
Spiel and die Spielgegenstiinde des Kindes. 
With 4 pp. of Music and 16 plates. 

Paper, $3.35 

Friedrich Froebel. Manual pratique des 
jardins d'enfants, a I'usage des institutrices 
et des meres defamille, compose sur les docu- 
ments ailemands par J. E. Jacobs et Mme. la 
baronne de Marenholtz-Buelow. With 
85 en cravings and several pages of Music. 
^ Paper, $4.20 



Friedrich Froebel. Mutter- und Kose-Lie- 

der. Dichtung und Bilder zur edlen Pfiege 

des Kindheitlebens. Ein Familienbuch. With 

Etchings, Text and Music. New Edition. 

Boards, $4.'i0 

Friedrich Froebel. Mother Play, and Nur- 
sery Songs. Illustrated by 50 engravings. 
With Notes to Mothers. Translated from 
the German. Boards, $2.00 

Karl Froebel. Elements of Designing on the 
Developing System for Elementary School 
Classes and for Families, i parts, each 
containing 24 pages ruled in squares, with 
designs and space for copying. 

Paper, @ $0.35 

George Gill. Calisthenic Songs. Illustrated. 
Suitable for Public and Private Schools, 
and the Nui-sery, containing Pieces for 
Diversion and Recreation. Boards, $0.50 

George Gill. Movement Plays and Action 
Songs. Boards, $0.50 

Herm. Goldamnier. Friedrich Fratbel, der 
Begrunder derKindergarlen-Erziehung. Sein 
Leben und Wirken. Paper, $0.75 

Herm Goldamnier. Gymnastische Spiele 
und Bildungsmitiel fur Kinder von 3 — 8 
Jahren. Fdr Ilaus und Kindergarten. 

Paper, $1.35 

Hertn. Goldamtner. Le Jardin d'enfants. 
Dons et Occupations d I'usage des meres de 
famille, des salles d'asile et des ecoles primai- 
res. Avec une introduction de Mme. la ba- 
ronne de Marenholtz-Bulow. Traduit de 
I'allemand par Louis Fouknier. 120 plates. 
Paper $3.70; cloth, $4.40 

Goldamnier-Reffelt. Die Einordnung des 
Kindergartens in das Schidwesen der Ge- 
meinde. Nach H. Goldammer mil RiXck- 
sicht auf amerikanischc Verhdltnisse darge- 
stellt von H. "Eeffelt. Paper $0.15 

W. K. Haihnatin. Four Lectures on Early 

Child Culture. Paper, $0.25; 

Flexible Cloth, $0.40 

W. N. Haihnann, Kindergarten Culture in 
the Family and Kindergarten: A complete 
Sketch of Fraibel's System of Early Education, 
adapted to American Institutions. For the 
use of Mothers and Teachers. Illustrated. 
Cloth, net $0.75 

Handbook for the Kindergarten. With plates. 
Paper, $1.00 

Alex. Bi-^mo HanscJimann. Friedrich 
Frcebel. Die Entwickelung seiner Erziehungs- 
idee in seinem Leben. Paper, $2.96 

A. B. Hanschmann. Die Handarbeit in 
der Knabenschule. Drei Abhandlungen iiber 
die Verbindung des Kindergartens und der 
praktisclien Arbeit mit der LernschuU. 

Paper, $0.45 

*A. B. Hanschmann. Das System des 
Kindergartens nach Froebel. Filr MUtter 
und Kindergartnerinnen. Illustrated. 

Paper, $0.15 

Eleanor e Heertvart. An Abstract of Lessons 
on the Kindergarten System given to the senior 
Students of the Training College, Stockwell. 
Paper, $0.50 

Eleonore Heertvart. Music for the Kinder- 
garten. Hymns, Songs, and Games, for use 
in the Kindergarten, the Family, and the In- 
fant School, collected and arranged. 
•^ Limp cloth, $1.25 

Eleonore Heerwart and Hannah Ridley, 
Painting for Children. A Course progres- 
sively arranged according to Friedrich 



766 



steiger's kindergarten publications 



FroBbel'a Kindergarten System, for use at 
home or in the Kindergarten. Part I. 12 
plates, colored. Paper, $0.50 

The same. Exercise Book. Parti. 12 plates. 
Paper, $0.25 

*Hetnri.ch Hoffmann. Kindergarten Toys, 
and how to use them. A practical Explana- 
tion of the first six Gifts of Frabel's Kinder- 
garten. Illustrated. Paper, $0.20 

*Jnnies Huf/hes. The Kindergarten; its 
Place and Purpose. An Address. 

Paper, $0.12 

*The Kindergarten engrafted on the American 
Public School System. Extracts from Official 
Reports on the Public Kindergartens in 
St. Louis, Mo. Paper, $0.06 

*Der Kindergarten in Amerika. Entstehung, 
Wesen, Bedeuiung und Erziehungsmittel des 
Frcebel' schen Systems und seine Anwendung 
auf hiesige Verhdllnisse. Fiir Eltern, Leh- 
rer und Kinderfreunde kurz dargestellt. 

Paper, $0.15 

The Kindergarten Messenger. Edited by Eli- 
zabeth P. Peabodt. New Series, Vol. I, 
(1877.) 6 Double Numbers. (January to 
December.) net $1.00 

Kindergarten Tracts (Steiger's), 22 Numbers. 
No. 1, What is the Purpose of Kindergarten 

Education? 50 copies for $0.15 

2. Was ist der Zweclc der Kindergarten- Er- 
ziehung ? 50 for $0.05 

3. What is a Kindergarten ? or Frcebel's Sys- 
tem of Education briefly explained. 50 for $0.10 

4. Was ist ein Kindergarten ? Kurze Darstel- 
l»ng des Frobel'schen Systems. 50 for $0.10 

5. Froebel and the Kindergarten System. (Ex- 
tract from a Lecture by Prof. Jos. Payne.) 

.50 for $0.20 

6. What I think of Kindergartens. (From 
the Herald of Health.) 50 for $0.10 

7. Kindergarten. (From the N. V. IVeekly 
Tribune.) 50 for $0.10 

8. A Day in the Kindergarten of Frdulein 
Beld, at Nashua, N. H. 50 for $0.10 

9. The Kindergarten. (An Address by Mis'; 
S. E. Blow.) 50 for 0.20 

10. The Medical Profession recommend the 
Kindergarten. 50 for $0.05 

11. The Christmas Kindergarten. (A Letter 
by the Rev. J. S. Travelh.; 50'for $0.10 

12. The Rose Window. 50 for $0.10 

13. A few Words to Mothers on P)-osbel's First 
Gift for' Babies. 50 for $0.20 

\i. Friedrich, Frcebel's Developing System of 
Education. (A Lecture by Karl Frcebel.) 

50 for $0.20 

15. Frcebel's Kindergarten Educalinn esjie- 
cially necessary in Orphan Asylums and similar 
Institutions where there are no natural Mothers. 
(Accouut of a visit to the New York F'oundling 
Asylum by Miss Elizabeth P. Peabody.) 

50 for $0.10 

16. Kindergarten und Charakierbildung. 
(Vortrag von Angelika Hartmann.) 

50 for $0.20 

17. The Kindergarten connected with the Pub- 
lic Schools at St. Louis, Mo. (By W.'I'.H arris.) 

50 for $0.10 

18. The Genesis of Froebelism. 50 for $0.05 

19. The Need of Charity Kindergartens. 

50 for $0.05 

20. The Kindergartner's Commencement. (An 
Address by Miss Elizabeth P. Peabody.) 

50 for $0.05 

21. A few Words touching thf. Influence of 
Kindergarten Educaiion on the Formation of 
character and Morals. (By Mrs. Margaret 
p. Maguire.) 50 for $0,10 



22. Secular Education and Kindergarten. 

(Report to the Presbyterian Synod of Erie, 

1879.) 50 for SO.IO 

Packets of complete Sets of the 22 Tracts 

will be mailed upon receipt of 8 Cents per 

packet ; additional supply for distribution 

furnished at the prices quoted above. 

Atig, Koehler. Die Bewegungsspiele. des Kin- 
dergartens. Illustrated. Paper, $1.70 

Auf). KoehJer. Die Praxis des Kindergar- 
tens. Theoretisch-praktische Anleiiung mm 
Gebrauche der FrcebeV schen Erziehungs- tind 
Bildungsmtltel in Haus, Kindergarten und 
Schule. 3 vols Illustrated. Paper, $5.70 

Separately; 
Vol.1. With 22 plates. Paper, $1.90 

Vol. II. With 40 plates. Paper, $1 90 

Vol. III. With 2 plates. Paper, $.1.90 

*Atiff. Koehler. Die neue Erziehvng. Grund- 
zUge der pddagogischen Ideen Fr. Frcebel's 
und deren Anwendung in Familie, Kinder- 
garten und Schule. Paper, $0.15 

*Marin KransSoeHe. The Kindergarten 
and the Mission of Woman; my Experience 
as Trainer of Kindergarten Teachers in this 
Country. An Address. Paper, $0.00 

*3J[aria Kratts-Boelte and tTohii Kraus. 
J'tie Kindergarten Guide. An Illustratid 
Hand-Book de.':igned for the Self-Instruction 
of Kinder gariners, Mothers, and Nurses. 

1. The FirU and Second Gifts. With 50 
illustrations. Paper, $0.35: cloth, $0.65 

2. The Third. Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth 
Gifts. With 497 illustrations. 

Paper, $0.70: cloth, $1.00 

3. The Seventh Gift {The Tablets). With 
554 illustrations. Paper, $0..50; cloth, $0.80 

4. The Eighth Gift {T/ie Connected Stat). 
The Ni7ith Gift (Slat-interlacing). The Tenth 
Gift I Slick-laying). Witb 509 illustrations. 

Paper, $0.70: Cloth, $1 00 

5. The Eleventh Gift {King-laying). The 
Twelfth Gift (The Thread-Game). The Thir- 
teenth Gift {The Point). With 468 illustra- 
tions. Paper, $0.70; cloth, $1.00 

^B®" These 5 nuinbers, treating of the 13 
Gifts, are now (.September, 1880) ready. They 
will be followed by the numbers treating of 
the Occupations, viz.; 

6. Perforating, Sewing. With many il- 
lustrations. 

7. Drawing, Painting. With many illus- 
trations. 

8. Mat-plaiting, Paper-interlacing. With 
many illustrations. 

9. Paper folding. Paper-cutting, aud Pa- 
per-mounting, Silhouetting. With many 
illustrations. 

10. /"eos (Cork) Work, Cardboard-work, 
Modeling. With many illustrations. 

11. Stories, Music, Games, Conversational 
Lessons, Discipline, Care of I'lants and Ani- 
mals, etc. With music and illustrations. 

jg®" This is a book for every family, and 
for every teacher. — Miss E. P. Peabody 
writes in regard to it: " We like the Man- 
ual very much, and my sister (Mrs. Mann) 
says, 'since it is impossible for Mrs. Kbaus 
to teach all the children in the United 
States herself, the next best thing for her 
to do is certainly to give these precise and 
full directions to others.' We are indeed 
delighted with your minuteness, thor- 
oughness, and clearness of direction. Your 
book is certainly far in advance of any 
Guide we* have yet seen." 
*Ahnn L. Kriege, Rhymes and Tales for 
the Kindergarten and Nursery, Colleiled ond 



STEIGER'S KINDERGARTEN PUBLICATIONS 



7G7 



revised. With introductory remarks on 

the value and mode of telling stories to 

children. Paper, $0.50; 

cloth, gilt edges, $1.0U 

*MatiI(1a J3. Kriege. The Child, its Xaiure 

and Relations. An Elucidatinn of Frwbel's 

Principles of Education. A free rendering 

of the German of the Baroness Marenholtz- 

BuELow. Cloth, gilt top, $1.00 

(The New Education. — The Child's Being. 

— Its Relation to Nature, Man, and God. — 

T'he Child's Manifestations. — The Child's 

Education. — Frcebel's " Mother Cosseting 

Songs." — Kundam-jntal Forms. — Reading.) 

* Matilda U. Kriege. Friedrich Froebel. 

A biographical Sketch. With portrait. 

Paper, J0.25; cloth, $0.50 

*H. f. Lord, How to influence Little Chil- 
dren. A Le<;ture. Paper, $0.10 

Miirii .7. Ltjsvhinsha. The Kindergarten 
Principle; its Educational Value and Chief 
Apiitications Cloth, $1.80 

Ji. von Mareiiholtz - mUoiv, The Ifeiv 
Education by Worlc, according to Frcebel's 
Mttltod. Translated by Mrs. Horace 
Mann, with the assistance of Leopold 
NoA. Paper, net SO.T.'i 

a. von Marenholts-Billou'. Reminiscences 
of Friedrich Froebel. Translated by Mrs. 
Horace Mann. With a Sketch of the Life of 
Friedrich Frmbel by Emily Shirkeff. 

Cloth. $1.50 

y, Moore. A Kindergarten Manual of Draw- 
ing. Exerci.ses for young children upon 
figures of Plain Geometry. With 17 plates. 
Paper, $0.50 

*C. H. Morefiouse. The Kindergarten: its 
Aims. Methods, and Results. A practical Ex- 
planation of the System of Froebel. Illus- 
trated. Paper, $0.25 

Benrietia Noa. Play."! for the Kindergarten. 
Music by Ch. J. Richter. (The Text of 
the 19 plays is in both English and Ger- 
man. Stiff cover, net $0.30 

* Joseph. Pai/tie. Froebel and the Kindergar- 

tev System of Elementary Instruction. 

Paper, $0.15 

*J'oseph Payne. Pestalozzi; the Influence of 
the Principles and Practice on Elementary 
Education. A Lecture. Paper, $0.06 

*jroseph Payne. The Science and Art of 
Education (a Lecture), and Principles of the 
Science of Education, as exhibited in the 
Phenomena founded on the unfolding of a 
Young CIdld's Powers under the Influence nf 
Natural Circumstances. Paper, $0.15; 

cloth, $0.40 

*ISlizaheth P. Peahody. Guide to the Kin- 
dergarten and Intermediate Class. And 
Moral Culture of Infancy. By Maby Mann. 
Revised Edition. Cloth, $1.25 

(Kindergarten. — What is it? — Rooms, etc. 
— Music. — Plays, Gymnastics, and Dancing. 
— The Kindergartner. — Kindergarten Occu- 
pations. — Moral and Religious E.xercises. — 
Object Lessons. — Geometry. — Reading. — 
Grammar and Languages. — Geography. — 
The Secret of Power. — Moral Culture of 
Infancy. — Songs. ) 

^Elizabeth P. Peahody. The Identification 
of the Artisan and Artist the proper object of 
American Education. Illustrated by a 
Lecture of Cardinal Wiseman, on the Re- 
lation of the Arts of Design with the Arts of 
Production. With an Essay on Frcebel's 
Reform nf Primary Education. Paper, $0.20 

*Elizaheth P. Peabody, Education of the 
Kindergartner. A Lecture. Paper, $0.25 



^Elizabeth P. Peabody. The Nursery, k 

Lecture. Paper, $0.25 

*Klizabeth P. Peahody and Mary Mann. 

After Kindergarten — What ? A Primer of 
Reading and Writing for tlte Intermediate 
Class and Primary Schools generally. 

Boards, roan back, $0.45 
"We are glad to see the plan of quite over- 
turning the accepted methods of spelling is 
not eneouraged. The methods adopted and 
the style of instruction ought to make this 
primer and going to school a great delight to 
every child." (The Fitblisher's Weekly.) 

*Play? and Songs for Kindergarten and 
Family. Collected and revised by a Kin- 
dergartner. Paper, $0.50 
Herm. Poeache, Die Ball- nnd Turnspiele 
Fr. Frcebel's. Fur Haus, Kindergarten und 
Schide bearbeilet. Illustrated. Paper, $0.85 
JoJiatines and liertha Itonge. A practical 
Guide to the English Kindergarten, for the 
use of Mothers, Governesses, and Infant- 
Teachers, being an exposition of Frcebel's 
System of Infant-Teaching, accompanied with 
a great variety of Instructive and Amusing 
Games, and Industrial and Gymnastic Exer- 
cises. With numerous Songs set to Music 
and arranged for the Exercises. With 71 
lithographic plates. Cloth, $2.10 
Constant Sclioebe. 40 ausgeivUhlte Bewe- 
gungssjiiele des Kindergartens zundchsl fur 
den hduslichen Gebrauch. Zweistimmig ge- 
setzt und mit leichter Clavierbegleitung 
versehen. Paper, $0.65 
*p:mily Shirreff. The Claim of FrcebeVs 
System to be called "The New Education." 

Paper, $0.06 
Emily Shirreff. The n.indergai-ten. Prin- 
ciples of Frcebel's Sy.^tem, and their Bearing 
on the Education of Women. Also, Remarks 
on the higher Education of Women. Cloth. $1.25 
Steigei''s Designs, arranged by John Kkaus 
aiid BIaria ICraus-Boelte. 

Designs for Stick-laying. 12 plates. $0.30 

Net-work Drawing. 12 plates, $0.30 

Pei/omiin5':P)n'cA;m3).12plates$0.30 

Weaving [Braiding). 12 plates. $0.30 

Embroidering. 12 plates. $0.30 

Cork or Peas Work. 12 plates. $0.30 

Plaiting{Interlacing Slats). 12plates. 

$0.30 

Ring-laying. 12 plates. $0.30 

Inlerlwining Paper. 12 plates. $0.30 

Cutting Paper. 12 plates. $0.30 

Tablet-laying. 43 plates. $0.60 

*Ed. Wiebe. The Paradise of Childhood. A 
Manual for Self- Instruction in Friedrich 
Frcebel's ' Educational Principles, and a 
Practical Guide to Kindergartners. Quarto. 
With plates. Paper, $1.50; cloth, $2.00 
Ed. Wiebe. The Songs, Music, and Movement 
Plays of the Kindergarten. Quarto. With 
64 pages Music. Paper, $2.25 



The above, and all other TKindergarteir 
Pablications are constantly kept on hand 
and for sale by K. Steiger <fe Co., 25 Park 
Place, New York. 

Kindergarten Material. 

A very full assortment of Kindergarten 
Material prepared according to the di- 
rection of the highest authorities, supplied 
by E. Steiger & Co., 25 Park Place, New 
York. Moderate prices: favorable terms 
for quantities. Illustrated catalogue sent 
gratis. 



768 KRAUS' KINDERGARTEN GUIDE 

The aim and purjjose of this book will be best understood from the 
following Preface: 

"The Kindergarten Guide is the result of twenty years' experience in the kinder- 
garten, in Germany, England, and America. 

When the first chapters of this book were written, the Authors had in view the prep- 
aration of a small hand-book, solely for the use of the mothers who visited their 
" Mothers' Class ", and who, repeatedly, requested the publication of the lessons and 
lectures there given. 

This plan was, however, entirely changed, and the enlargement of the work rendered 
necessary by the desire for information which was very generally expressed, alike by 
persons visiting the kindergarten and by interested inquirers. 

The pupils of the Training-Class conducted by the Authors, desired a manual which 
should aid them in their work, following out the course of teaching and training with 
which they had become familiar; letters were received from all parts of the land, but es- 
pecially from mothers who were far away from any kindergarten, asking lor advice and 
instruction, and needing instruction minute enough to supply the place of personal ob- 
servation; many of the nurses who, by attendance with the children at the kindergar- 
ten, had obtained such partial information as circumstances permitted, manifested both 
interest in, and appreciation of, the work, and became desirous of wider knowledge as 
to the proper treatment of children, and the means of making the nursery more and 
more attractive; teachers and principals — male and female. Sisters of Charity and other 
Orders inquired both personally and by letter, to what extent Froebel's Occupations 
njight be introduced into the schools, asylums, and institutions under their charge; and, 
finally, many persons, superficially or imperfectly trained as teachers in so-called kin- 
dergartens, becoming dissatisfied with their preparation, honestly confessed this fact, 
and asked for the means of obtaining, by the aid of some book on the subject, a better 
understanding of kindergarten instruction, based upon the methods and teachings of 
Froebel himself. 

These numerous and urgent requests for increased information, therefore, induced 
the Authors to enlarge the plan of their projected work, and, now, this book is offered to 
all interested in the kindergarten, as one which endeavors to meet, in some measure at 
least, these repeated demands. It is to be hoped that the book, as the result of much 
earnest labor bestowed upon it, will convey to those who attempt to follow its directions, 
most of the help and assistance needed. 

Of one thing the readers of this Guide may be assured, viz.: that from it they may 
obtain the genuine praxis of Froebel, developed, it is thought, in the light of his ideas. 
The attempt has been made to render it all that such a guide should be as an aid to 
mothers, kindergartners, and nurses, and to all who have the happiness and careful 
training of children at heart. Especial attention is invited to the final chai^ter, on the 
spirit and manner of story-telling and of talking and playing with the little ones. The 
information it conveys, and the suggestions it offers, may be alike interesting and in- 
structive to all who are intx'usted witli the daily care of children. 

Inasmuch as the result of right training becomes every day apparent in the de- 
velopment and progress of the children under their charge, all thoughtful persons who 
are earnestly engaged in kindergarten education will be repeatedly surprised at the new 
channels of pleasing instruction, which are opened before them, and at the rapid ad- 
vance of the children themselves in intellect and knowledge as well as at their har- 
monious physical development. 

It must be borne in mind, that is was the intention of Froebel that his system of 
educational development should be continued beyond the kindergarten age of the chil- 
dren. His labors, therefore, were not confined to the kindergarten alone, which was 
but one of the several features of his new and peculiar system. 

The benefit of Froebel's educational idea will completely be appreciated only, when 
it shall have been applied to every stage of educational progress — when, in fact, the 
kindergarten is considered but the preparation for a higher education based upon the 
same fundamental principle; a system, which will permit each pupil to manifest his own 
individuality freely and without restraint, and allow the fullest scope to his talents, 
tastes, and tendencies. 

The course which is to be pursued after that of the kindergarten has been con- 
cluded, is indicated, or, at least, hinted at, in the different Gifts and Occupaticms, in 
each of which the mere playful work is to be gradually superseded by actual practical 
work. 

The careful student will find that Froebel's method furnishes the starting-point 
for each science and for each profession. 

In conclusion, the Authors will not fail to say expressly, that even the most earnest 
study of this book, or of any other book, will never enable a person to undertake suc- 
cessfully the management of a kindergarten — any attempt to do this must prove un- 
satisfactory. Nothing short of a thorough understanding of the system and its philos- 
ophy, nothing less than the attainment of a certain manual dexterity, and a practical 
knowledge of many other apparently unimportant matters — all of which can only be 
acquired by going through a full course of instruction in a Training-Class — are,'in ad- 
dition, to natural aptitude, necessary for a person who desires to become a successful 
kindergartner." " 



I 



EINDEEGAIiTEN BUILDINGS AND GROUNDS. 

BT MISS CAROLINE PROGLER,* 
Directress of Special Training at Geneva. 



The Kindergartens have multiplied within fifteen years, and have 
spread over the whole globe, but wherever this new education has been 
introduced it has had to be contented with very defective provisional 
arrangements. Private dwelling-houses, workshops, stores, even aban- 
doned breweries, as has often been the case in England, have been util- 
ized for this purpose. What is especially wanted is a garden, or a culti- 
vatable open space, attached to the premises ; if that condition is fulfilled, 
we can pass over many deficiencies. 

Every country has its organic decrees and regulations for school build- 
ings; nothing similar yet exists for Kindergartens, so that we must here 
give an ideal type. We hope to succeed in throwing some light upon this 
quite new question. 

Place, Orientation^ Enclosure. 

The choice of the place designed to receive a Kindergarten, and its 
dependencies, is a very serious question ; more serious, perhaps, than the 
choice of a place for a primary school. It is important that it shall be 
central, that it shall be as near as possible to the little people, who cannot 
be taken long distances. The approach to the place should be salubrious, 
and the place itself situated in an airy, quiet quarter, outside the daily 
movement of great centers. If it is a Kindergarten for a rural community, 
it must be accessible to all, even to detached villages. The condition of 
proximity must be subordinate, in the country, as well as in the city, to 
the facility and safety of access. 

It is difiicult always to give to a school the orientation that is judged 
best for hygiene and for lighting. The rooms in which the children are 
should, if possible, be exposed to the north and east. This exposure, the 
coolest at all times of the year, has been objected to because it necessitates 
the use of more fuel in winter, and therefore more expense. But in these 
days this argument has lost much of its weight, because of the perfection 
to which science and ingenuity have brought the apparatus of heating. 

We have said that the Kindergarten must be easy of access. To this 
we would add that it should be absolutely independent of all neighboring 
buildings, and that it should be situated in the midst of a garden. We 
should like to have it surrounded, in a city, by a grating, with a wall for 
a basis; in the country, by a living hedge. In city communities, where 
in all probability the locality must be on a street or in a public square, we 
would recommend the building to be rrom 3 to 5 meters [10 to 17 feet] 
back of the line of houses. Behind the principal building should be the 
uncovered yard, planted with trees, and a small territory for the children's 
gardens. Building, court, garden, and enclosure, should occupy, in a city, 

•Report to BrusBels luteruational Con^resa. Translated by Mrs. Horace Mana. 



(7^70 KINDERGARTEN BUILDINGS AND GROUNDS. 

12 or 15 ares [13,000 to 16,000 sq. ft.], at least; in the country, 8 or 10 
ares [9,000 to 11,000 sq. ft.]. 

In an institution for little children, it is always best that the apartments 
shall be on the ground floor, as stairways are more or less dangerous, and 
require more watching of the little ones. Such buildings do not require 
deep foundations, and have the advantage of not being costly. 

The ground under such buildings should always be in good sanitary 
condition, underdrained, and free from all surface dampness. 

In cases where it is necessary to put Kindergartens into primary school 
buildings, the two institutions should have their separate entrances and 
different recreation-hours. 

Number of Booms. 

The number of rooms necessary for the Kindergarten will not be the 
same in the city and the country. In cities, the Kindergarten will contain 
three or four divisions, each of which must be placed under the charge 
of a teacher. These divisions require as many rooms, and a covered yard 
or play-room. We think that a Kindergarten, even in populous centers, 
should not receive more than 150 pupils; the maximum of 200 should 
never be passed. 

One teacher, if she wishes to apply the method intelligently and with 
good fruit, should have no more than 30 pupils. If this number is ex- 
ceeded, she should have an assistant, to whom she can confide a part of 
her pupils. On this condition alone should a Kindergarten number 50 
children. 

In rural communities, where there is generally but one teacher, she will 
unite all the children, who will not often exceed 30 (the statistical number 
of children in a community of 1,000 inhabitants). Two halls, one for 
work and one for play, will be suflScient. 

Surface, Height, and Sliape of the Booms. 

A hall designed for a maximum of 30 pupils should be 7m50 by 
6m50 [24.6 by 20.3 ft.], or 8 m. by 7 [26.2 by 23.0 ft.], in order that each 
child may have an average surface of a square meter [10.8 sq. ft.]. The 
teachers of Kindergartens having constantly to speak and sing with their 
little pupils, too large halls are found to be very fatiguing, and always 
injurious to the voice. We do not think the height of the halls should 
exceed 3m60 or 3m80 [11.8 or 12.5 ft.], if we wish to obtain good 
acoustic conditions; 3m75 [12.3 ft.] high and 48.75 square meters [524.7 
sq. ft.] of surface would furnish each pupil 3.656 cubic meters [129 cu. ft.] 
of air. The halls should be not far from square.* 

The furniture must be moveable, that the teacher may group the chil- 
dren at her will for the various labors or exercises. 

Each working-room must open by a double folding-door into the cov- 

-»r^ c . 

* In the section of Hygiene [at the meeting of the International Congress of Education 
at Brussels, Aug., 1880], M. Perrin stated that the requirements of the Council of Educa 
tion were, for each pupil, one meter of superficies and four meters of height. The section 
adopted almost unanimously the proposition of M. Janssens, that, for a class of fifty, the 
minimum accommodations required was a room 9.60 meters by 8 and 4.75 in height [31.5 by 
36.2 by 15.6 ft.]. The light should be a side-light, and should only come from one side. 
—Journal qf Education, London, Oct. 1, 1880, no. 1.35, p. 225. 



, KINDERGARTEN BUILDINGS AND GROUNDS. 77 j 

ered yard, that the children may march in and out two by two This 
covered yard should be, in a city, as often as possible, a central space. 

In case the form of the land on which the building is placed obliges 
these plans to be modified, we advise that the four working-rooms should 
be connected by a corridor, and the play-room should be annexed to the 
rear of the principal building. The play-room is indispensable to a Kin- 
dergarten. It is more than a covered yard; it is a hall of gymnastic exer- 
cises, designed for marches, for rings, for plays, etc. As this hall would 
unite several divisions in play hours, 13 meters by 10 [39.4 by 32.8 ft.] 
would not be exaggerated proportions, giving Om'SO [8.6 sq. ft 1 as the 
minimum for each child. 

Parlor. 
The parlor annexed is a reception-room for the parents. It is at the 
same time the office of the instructor-in-chief, who keeps in it the regis- 
ters of her school administration. In the city, the parlor will need to'^be 
larger than in the country, and will serve for a place of reunion for the 
teachers. It ought to be near the entrance, and open from the vestibule. 
In every Kindergarten there should be two cabinets; one to hold all the 
material for work, the other the work done by the children, and their 
collections of plants, seeds, minerals, etc. 

In the rural districts a domestic should fill the place of janitor. Her 
charge will be the material care of the children and the neatness of the 
whole establishment. Her lodging should be a chamber and a kitchen. 
Behind these rooms should be another kitchen, for warming the food of 
the children who pass the day at the school, and where the soup shall be pre. 
pared, which will be gratuitously distributed. Near the entrance, and 
opening from the vestibule, should be a room for the children's outside 
clothing, hats, etc. 

We need not insist upon the details of this room, so indispensable to 
the healthfulness and neatness of the establishment. If there is room 
enough, a little dormitory, where the children who fall asleep can be laid 
on suitable couches, should be found in every Kindergarten. 

Walls and Ceilings. 
The rooms should be floored with pine, which is not so cold as oak, and 
permits frequent washing. If moisture is feared, it is well to harden the 
floor with a preparation of India rubber. The walls should be smooth 
and glossy, covered with plaster, and painted in oils in a neutral tint. 
Painting in oil is healthy; we also recommend it for the ceilings. 

Lightr— Heating Apparatus— Ventilating. 
Each room should be lighted by a casement window placed in middle of 
outer wall, and open like doors from the middle with hinges on the sides. 
It should be 3m60 [11.8 ft.] wide; the sill, OmSO [29.5 or 31.5 in.] above 
the floor, and at least 3m [9.8 ft.] high, extending to ceiling. Each fold 
should be divided into quarters— the outer quarter each Om90 [35.4 in.] 
wide— the outer fixed, and the inner made to swing back and fasten on to 
the outer. Glass should be transparent, and not ground or colored. 
Simple curtains will keep out direct rays. 



772 KINDERGARTEN BUILDINGS AND GROUNDS. 

An apparatus for heating, outside the rooms, is preferable to all others 
for little children, owing to the dangers of stoves and other modes of 
heating. In an apparatus which gives great satisfaction, the heating ap- 
paratus is under the floor, and fed by external air; the channels built in 
the walls send the fresh warmed air into orifices that open ImSO [4.9 ft.] 
above the floor. It is always possible, even in very cold winters, to obtain 
an average temperature of 14^ C. [57° F.] before the opening of the school. 
Notwithstanding the impossibility of opening the windows, the air re- 
mained pure, and the temperature was sufficiently high. The cost 
amounted to 12 francs [$3.40] for each pupil. The average expense of 
fuel did not exceed 50 Kg. [110 lbs.] per day, or 1 centime [0.2 cts.] per 
pupil. As we recommend small classes, this apparatus is as complete 
as can be desired, and simplifies very much the labor of the janitor. 

Ventilation is secured by supply of fresh air in connection with heating 

apparatus. 

Water-Closet3. 

These should be placed inside the building to prevent exposure to the 
children, and they can be so built as to be wholly inoffensive. The seats 
should be of white pine, and thoroughly washed every day. The basins 
should be of crockery, closed hermetically when shut; the number of 
seats should be one for every twenty children, the urinals, one for every 
forty boys, and so constructed that they can be simultaneously flushed 
several times every day. The urinals should be made of slate, the only 
substance which does not become oxydized, and which, well washed, 
emits no odors. The premises should be easily ventilated. 

We do not think a refectory necessary. The children can eat their 
lunches in one of the rooms, which will be kept clean and aired. 

Furniture. 
The furniture of a Kindergarten must unite certain conditions. It 
must be portable, of moderate price, simple and not complicated, solid 
and requiring few repairs, the seats of two sizes, with backs; the first 
size for children from 2^ years to 4, 28 cm. [11.0 in.] high; second size, 
for children from 4 to 6 years of age, 31 cm. [12.2 in.], and both 24 cm. 
[9.4 in.] wide, and lm35 [53.2 in.] long, with backs 25 to 28 cm. 
[9.8 to 11 in.] high. The table of the first size should be 45 cm. [17.7 in.] 
high, 30 cm. [11.8 in.] wide, and lm35 long; of the second size, 52 cm. 
[20.5 in.] high, 35 cm. [13.8 in.] wide, and lm35 long. The tables must 
be provided with a moveable border, 4 cm. [1.6 in.] high, that can be 
raised or lowered at will, for certain ball plays. The play-room should 
be surrounded with benches. The black-board must be on rollers. 

The Recreation Yard. 
A large court for this purpose is indispensable to a Kindergarten. It 
should occupy a place at least as large as the whole building, and be 
divided into two parts, one surrounded with trees for the plays, the other 
divided off into little gardens. The soil should be well drained, rolled, 
and covered with sand, to avoid any dampness. Around the shaded por- 
tion should be low benches, and we should like to see a fountain in the 
middle, furnished with a cock which could be closed at pleasure. 



KINDERGARTEN BUILDINGS AND GROUNDS. 773 

The wall around the play-yard should be adorned with climbing plants, 
and the little gardens should be partially shaded, where the children can 
plant seeds of all such plants as will serve for conversations; flowers, veg- 
etables, cereals, textile plants, etc. These little plantations will prove an 
inexhaustible mine of pleasure and instruction. The children should be 
taught to respect these gardens, which no one is to invade but the teach- 
ers. The child who receives, in the spring, one of these little beds, OmSO 
by 0m40 [31.5 by 15.7 inches] in size, will dig it, rake it, sow it, water 
it, under the direction of the teacher, and what he reaps from it will be 
his own property. There will be a little building for the spades, rakes, 
watering-pots, etc., of which the children are to be taught to take care, 
and if the premises will permit, a little stable should be found in all such 
play-grounds, containing a few animals; a lamb, a goat, rabbits, pigeons, 
etc., of which the children should be taught to take care. 

A beautiful Kindergarten building, the FroebelJiaus, was erected at 
Spire, in 1874. The local committee endeavored to make it answer in 
every way to the wishes of the great Master. It stands in the midst of a 
large garden ornamented with trees, several meters in the rear of the line 
of the street, from which it is separated by a parterre of flowers. The 
principal facade of the building is 18 meters [59 ft.] in length, the build- 
ing 10 meters [33.8 ft.] deep. Each story contains two halls of 60 square 
meters [645.8 sq. ft.], a vestibule, a parlor, a dressing-room, etc. But 
the premises are too small for the 200 children that now constitute the 
Kindergarten. 

Several years ago numerous Kindergartens were opened in Munich. 
One peculiarity of them would be dear to the Master. To every school 
for young girls, built since 1873, a Kindergarten has been annexed, an 
excellent arrangement, which allows the elder pupils to go every day for 
several hours to learn the care they will have to take of their own broth- 
ers and sisters at first, and of their own children when they become 
mothers. The Kindergartens are not in the main school buildings, but 
erected in the gardens. The vestibule opens into one of the gymnastic 
halls, which at certain hours serves as a covered play-ground for the 
little ones. 

Economy of ground, diminution of the expenses of construction, etc., 
are advantages which make us wish to see many cities imitate the noble 
example of Munich. 

Saint Gall and Winterthur in Switzerland have each their Kindergarten. 
In the former city the two-story building does not seem to us to answer 
well for little children. 

Winterthur has one of the prettiest Kindergartens we are acquainted 
with. This elegant construction rises in a nest of verdure. With its 
columnar porch, and its grey seats, the Kindergarten of Winterthur makes 
an excellent impression. In the lower story are the great hall and its 
dependencies, and three rooms for work. 

We regret that here the children have to descend stairs three times a 
day to reach the play -room. This beautiful Kindergarten cannot serve as 
a type for the popular Kindergartens, which must be more simple and less 
costly. It occupies a surface of 325 square meters [3497.6 sq. ft.] 



KINDERGARTEN MATERIAL. 



In the limited space at our disposal it is impossible to give a complete expla- 
nation of the varied material used in a Froebel Kindergarten, but the following 
enumerations and brief description will serve to give a general idea of the 
various occupations, and the usual price of tlie principal material is given that 
those who are not Kindergartners may be able to form an estimate of the ex- 
pense. A more full catalogue may be obtained by addressing any large dealer 
in school supplies, or manufacturer of Kindergarten material. 



FIRST GIFT. 

The first gift consists of six soft balls about l^ 
inches diameter, and usually made of wool or hair, 
covered with a netting of worsted in the three pri- 
mary and three secondary colors. A trained Ivin- 
dergartner should be competent to make these for 
herself, and will not be satisfied with the inferior 
goods often offered by dealers. 



SECOND GIFT. 

The second gift consists of a sphere, cylinder 
and cube, provided with the necessary staples 
and holes for suspending in the air, an additional 
plain cube, two rattan axles for revolving the 
forms, and two posts and a cross beam for sus- 
pending them. 

All in a neat wooden box properly construct- 
ed for supporting the posts and beam. 

Price, $0.60 ; Postage, $.09 





THIRD GIFT. 

Eight rock maple cubes one inch square, in a neat, strong, 
varnished wooden box with slide cover, 

Price, $0.20 ; Postage, $.05 



FOURTH GIFT. 

Eight oblong blocks of rock maple, each two inches 
long, one inch wide and one-half inch thick. 

In neat, strong, varnished wooden box with slide cover. 
Price, $0.20 ; Postage, $.05 



776 



KINDERGARTEN MATERIAL. 




FIFTH GIFT. 

A cube (3x3x3 inches) consisting of 21 whole 
cubes (1 cubic inch), six half cubes and 12 quarter 
cubes. 

In varnished wooden box with slide cover, 

Price, $0.40; Postage, $.15 



SIXTH GIFT. 

Large cube, consisting of 18 whole, and three 
lengthwise and six breadthwise divided oblong 
blocks. In wooden box, slide cover. 

Price, $0.40; Postage, $.15 



The above blocks should be ma^e with great accuracy from the most thor- 
oughly seasoned hard rock maple. 

SEVENTH GIFT. 

The Seventh gift consists of quadrangular and triangular tablets usually of 
wood, although a heavy card-board serves the purpose fairly, at a much less 
price, while they retain their corners. If of wood they should be finely polish- 
ed, and are desirable in ligSt and dark woods. 



A. Eight squares, one inch on each side, in wooden 

box, 

A. 2. Sixteen squares, as above, 



Price. Postage. 

.25 $.02 
.35 .03 




Sixty-four half squares, one inch on each 
leg. Wooden box, 



Twenty-four equilateral triangles, one inch 

each side. Wooden box, .... 

C 2. Fifty-four equilateral triangles, as above. 



D. Sixty-four obtuse-angled triangles. 
Acute angles 30'. Wooden box, 



.50 



.03 



.40 .02 
.50 .03 



.60 .03 



E. Fifty-six right-angled triangles, 30° 

and 60°. Wooden box, . . .60 



.04 



The tablets for the seventh gift are also made in very heavy and solid paper 
board, each form and quantity as indicated above in A, B, C, D, E, in a paper 
box. The whole set, Price, $1.00; Postage, $.08 

Kindergarten Parquetry. — Those occupations in which something permanent 
can be made, are the most interesting, and seem to be more productive of 
good. 



KINDERGARTEN MATERIAL. 



777 



It is owing largely, no doubt, to this feature, that the weaving and braiding 
is now the most popular occupation iu the school and family. With this 
thought in mind, a new occupation has been devised in connection with the 
Seventh Gift which is termed Kindergarten Parquetry, and which has been re- 
ceived with favor by leading Kiudergartners. 

It consists of colored paper similar to the weaving and braiding papers, but 
cut accurately to the forms and sizes of the tablets in the Seventh Gift. A pu- 
pil having designed with the tablets a figure which is deemed worthy of pre- 
servation, is allowed to reproduce it permanently, by pasting papers of corres- 
ponding forms on to a heavy paper or card-board. These triangular papers 
are sold with the backs gummed like postage stamps, and also plain. 





/ 



fe^ 





For Kindergartens the plain is perhaps preferred by the majority, as the 
occupation of gumming neatly affords the best possible practice in manual dex- 
terity. But for home use where less supervision is available the gummed 
papers are more desirable. 

A box containing one thousand pieces, assorted forms gummed, is sold for forty 
cents, and the same without gum for twenty-five. 



778 KINDEKGABTEN MATERIAI^. 

BIGHTH GIFT. 

Sticks for Stick Laying. — This Gift consists of wooden sticks, which are cut 
to various lengths, and used to teach numerical proportions and for producing 
elementary forms, preparatory to drawing. 






That which is usually called the multiplication table is taught by means of 
this Gift, by actual observation. Instruction in reading according to the pho- 
netic method, as well as imitation of all letters of the alphabet, together with 
Koman and Arabic numerals, are taught in connection therewith, preparatory 
to the instruction in writing. 

The sticks for this Gift, if colored red, yellow, blue, purple, orange and green, 
are very attractive and useful. 

NINTH GIFT. 

Rings for Ring Laying. — This Gift consists of whole and half wire rings for 
laying figures embodying circles. A continuation of the Eighth Gift and pre- 
paratory to drawing and designing. 




The rings as ordinarily made are not soldered at the joints, and hence are 
not rings in the proper sense of the term. 

They may be obtained soldered, but of course are more expensive. 

A box with 36 whole rings and 72 half rings,* assorted sizes, not soldered, 
sells for fifty cents, and if soldered, for about seventy cents. 

TENTH GIFT. 

Drawing. — This material is slates and paper properly netted in squares. 

The paper formerly used was ruled into squares over the entire surface, and 
the ruling was very inaccurate. 

Recently drawing paper and books have been introduced in which the lines 
are accurately engraved and printed, and each small sheet or page has a plain 
margin. These features add to the value of this material. 

Still more recently slates ruled in the same way have been made as shown in 
cut on the following page, which are received with great favor because positive 
corners are thus provided for counting from in dictation. 



KINDERGAIITEN MATERIAL. 



779 




ELEVENTH GIFT. 

The Eleventh Gift or occupation is perforating, and the material consists of 
ruled papers and cards, a heavy needle in a handle, and a felt cushion or pad 
on which to lay the paper or card. 

TWELFTH GIFT. 

Embroidering. — This material is varied, consisting of cards, plain or perfor- 
ated, silks or worsteds and needles. Cards ready pricked in various geometri- 
cal patterns are largely used in this occupation by many Kindergartners. 

THIRTEENTH GIFT. 

Cutting Paper. — Squares of papers are folded and cut in various ways, pro- 
ducing symmetrical designs. The child's natural propensity to destroy with 
scissors is here guided in such an ingenious manner that the most astonishing 
results are produced. The usual material is plain squares of white or colored 
paper which, after having been properly folded, are marked by the teacher, to 
guide the pupils in cutting. 

A modification of the above consists in the use of papers having guide lines 
ruled on one side serving the same purpose as the ruled lines on the netted 
drawing papers, and enabling the pupils to do for themselves much which was 
formerly done by the Kindergartner. 

The Following diagrams represent the ruled cutting papers. 



Fig. 1 represents the ruled paper 
before being folded. 





Fig. 2. 
Fig. 2 is one of the triangular 
surfaces which is on the outside 
when folded- 



Fig. 1. 



780 



KINDEKGAKTEN MATERIAL. 




Fig. 3 represents this same sur- 
face with cuttiug marks applied. 




Fig. 3. 



Fig. 4 is the same design when 
cut and mounted. 



Fig. 4. 

Square papers, plain and ruled, of various grades and colors are furnished in 
this occupation by the manufacturers of material. 

FOURTEENTH GIFT. 

Weaving. — Strips of colored paper are woven into a differently colored sheet 
of paper, which is cut into strips throughout its entire surface, except a mar- 
gin at each end. The greatest variety of designs are produced, and the inven- 
tive powers of teacher and pupils constantly increase their numbers. 




■ H ■ H ■ H 
V V V ■- 

BO a B KB 

H - H ■ I 
-H-H-H 

■I 11 iilT ill 



This occupation is no doubt more popular and fascinating than any other, 
and the material offered is in such variety that a detailed list is impracticable 
here. The very undesirable tendency among Kindergartners to multiply and 
complicate the material is more fully seen in this occupation than in any other, 
and in this as in all the gifts, has the inevitable effect to greatly increase the 
cost of manufacture. 

The mats and fringes for weaving are put up in packages of twelve mats and 
the corresponding fringe, and sold for from ten to twenty cents, according to 
size and quality. 





KINDEEGARTEN M2VTERIAL, 78X 

FIFTEENTH GIFT. 



Plaiting. — The gift consists of fifty durable hard- 
wood slats, ten inches long. ^^^fl \ 
Per set, . Price, $0.15 ; Postage, $0.03. N<^ _^ ' A 
The forms which maybe produced in this gift^*^'^^ 
are almost inexhaustible and very pleasing. 



SIXTEENTH GIFT. 

Jointed Slats. — Pour jointed sets ' 
in box. One of four links. One of 
six links. One of eight links. One 
of sixteen links. 

The whole set, in box, $0.40 ; Post- 
age, $0.04. 

As this gift is to represent various 
lines, angles and figures, and not to 
be used as a measure, the slight links jointed in the four sets are much more 
desirable than the large jointed metric measure sometimes substituted. 

SEVENTEENTH GIFT. 

Paper strips for Lacing. — Paper strips of various colors — eight or ten inches 
long, and folded lengthwise — are used to represent a variety of fanciful forms, 
by bending and twisting them according to certain rules. 

One hundred strips, i inch wide, 20 inches long. Price, $0.15, Postage, $0.03 

EIGHTEENTH GIFT. 

Folding Paper. — The material for paper-folding consists of square, rectan- 
gular, triangular and circular pieces with which variously shaped objects are 
formed. 

NINETEENTH GIFT. 



Peas or Cork Work. — Skeleton forms of ob- 
jects are formed with soaked peas and pointed 
sticks, or with cork cubes and pointed wires. 

The sticks are the same as in the eighth gift. 
The pointed wires are much more convenient 
than sticks, and have recently come very much 
into favor. 



Price. Postage. 

Wires of various lengths, per box, $0.20 $0.02 

Cork cubes, per package of 100, 25 .01 

TWENTIETH GIFT. 

Price. Postage. 
Modeling knife of wood, with handle, per dozen, . . . $0.50 $0.02 
Modeling knife of wood, without handle and generally pre- 
ferred, per dozen, 25 .02 

Modeling boards of wood, per dozen, 1.50 

Clay, prei>ared, per pound, .05 




782 KINDERGARTEN MATERIAL. 

PIN STICKING TABLET. 




The pm sticking cushion or tablet, is a new occupation which has been very 
well receiyed by some leading Kindergartners. By a peculiar construction a 
perfectly level cushion with netted lines is formed. Into this the pupil sticks 
common pins in various designs. As this occupation is easily within the range 
of young children, and the effect of the silvered heads on the blue ground is 
very beautiful, it seems a very desirable addition to the occupation material. 

A finely polished walnut frame surrounds and sustains the cushion, which 
may be on one or both sides, — single or double. The price of these is fifty to 
seventy-five cents each. 

PAPERS AND STRAWS FOR STRINGING. 

Short pieces of straws and squares or circles of colored papers strung alter- 
nately on a thread produce a very pleasing effect and afford useful occupation. 
Circles of colored paper 1 inch diameter for stringing with 

straws, 1,000 pieces, $0.25 $0.02 

Squares of colored papers 1 inch square, 1,000 pieces, . .20 .02 

Straws 10 inches long, per 100 .10 

Straws cut to f inch long, per box of 1 ,000 pieces, . . .20 

The cut straws are a great convenience. 

MRS. HAILMANN's SECOND GIFT BEADS. 

Beads in the forms of second gift, viz. : Sphere, cylinder and cube, and in 
six colors, have been recently introduced with much satisfaction for stringing. 

In the above list of gifts and material the old German notation has been 
used, and no distinction made between the gifts proper and the occupations. 

This has been adopted because no other is so generally understood, and 
because it conforms to the description of the material in several of the preced- 
ing papers. 

All the above goods are made and furnished by Milton Bradley & Co., 
Springfield, Mass., who will send to any address a very complete illustrated 
catalogue gratis, or samples of material on receipt of the price as above indi- 
cated. 



KUfDEBGABTEN PUBLICATIONS. 
NEW EDITION OF THE PARADISE OF CHIIiDHOOD. 

BY EDWABD "WIEBB. 

This standard work, the first guide with complete plates published in the 
English language, has become a necessity with all kindergartners, and shuuld 
be in the hands of every intelligent mother. It contains 84 large double-column 
quarto pages of letterpress, and 75 full page lithograpli plates. Very full dia- 
grams for aU the gifts and occupations are found in the plates of The Paradise 
of Childhood, and in no other form can as full directions and diagrams be 
obtained for the same moderate price. 

The work is neatly printed on fine plated paper. 

In one volume, 4to. paper covers, $1 50 

In one volume, 4to. cloth and gilt, 2 00 

The reduction in the price of the paper edition from $2.50 to $1.50, by judi- 
cious condensation without abridgment, now places this valuable work within the 
reach of every one interested in the subject. 

The paper entitled Kindergarten Culture, heretofore published in a separate 
pamphlet, is also added in the new edition. 



A HAND BOOK FOR THE KINDERGARTEN. 

For the convenience of practical kindergartners the valuable plates of the 
" Paradise of Childhood" have been prefaced by new and original notes and 
suggestions by the ladies of the Florence Kindergarten, whicia are of great 
practical value as briefly suggesting the use of the plates. 

The notes on the Second and Seventh gifts are worth double the cost of the 
whole work to any kindergartner, and the verj low price ought to place it in 
the hands of every one. 

The publishers wish to state very explicitly that The Hand Book ia not an 
abridgement of the Paradise of Childhood. The plates are the same, but the 
text is entirely different. The principal object in publishing this book was to 
furnish all the plates and brief text to Kindergartners at a price lower than the 
larger book could be afforded. 
Price, post-paid, $1 00 



A KINDERGARTNKR'S MANUAL OP DRAWING :— EXERCISES FOR 
YOUNG CHILDREN UPON FIGURES OF PLANE GEOMETRY. 

BY N. MOOBE. 

Seventeen Large Quarto Lithographic Plates, and Sixteen Pages of Letterpress, 

Frobel, with a wisdom which has come later to other educators, classed 
drawing among educational occupations, and gave it a place in his educational 
scheme. Its worth has been proved ; children delight in drawing, draw better 
after practice in the kindergarten, and make use of their pencils in expressing 
what they have seen and learned. The special form in which drawing has been 
presented to kindergartners, to guide them in their teaching, does not meet all 
tlie needs of their pupils, and during the last four years a number of kinder- 
gartners have adopted, in preference. Miss Moore's series of drawing exercises, 
which seem to them to answer their purpose more fully. This differs from the 
" School of Drawing " commonly used, in following more closely the order of 
progression seen in the sewing, pricking, etc. It has the sanction and appro- 
bation of Mme. Kriege and her daughters, Miss Garland and Miss Weston, Miss 
Peabody and Mrs. Horace Mann, and of others who have used it in their kinder- 
gartens, before publication. And it has met with a very cordial reception since 
it has been offered to Kindergartners. The very low price brings it easy within 
the reach of all. 
Price, post-paid^ 50 cents. 



Pkstalozzi and Swiss Pedagogy, — Memoir and Educational Principles 
of John Henry Pestalozzi, with Biographical Sketches of other eminent 
Swiss Educators, and some account of Swiss Pedagogy in other Countries. 
Edited by Henry Barnard, LL.D. Revised Edition, 736 pages. $3.50 
in cloth binding. 

CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTION 1-48 

1. Pedagogy of Monastic Institutions, ....••••••• 7 

2. Platter, Zwingle, and Calvin, ...•••...•.«. 18 

3. Rousseau and Modern Pedagogy, ..•••• 17 

I. JOHN HENRY PESTALOZZI, 49-160 

1. Childhood and Youth, 1746-1767, 49 

2. Agricultural and Educational Experimenls, 66 

8. The Evening Hour of a Hernait, 1780, 59 

4. Leonard and Gertrude, 1781, 62 

6. Li(e and Writings between 1781-1798, 66 

6. Experience at Stanz, 1798, 68 

7. Institution at Bungdorf, with Krusi, Buss, and Tobler, 72 

8. Experience at Buchsee, 1804, 87 

9. Pestalozzian Institution at Yverdon, 87 

10. Last Years, 1815 to 1827, 114 

11. List of Publications, and Pestalozzian Literature,^. • . 127 

12. Celebration of One Hundredth Birthday, 145 

n. ASSISTANTS OF PESTALOZZI, 155-224 

Hermann Krusi — Johannes Buss — Joseph Schmeid — John Tobler, lbl-205 

John Kamsauer — Johannes Neiderer — Hans George Nageli, 217-221 

m. PESTALOZZI, FELLENBERG, AND WHERLI, 225-352 

1. Philip Emanuel Von Fellenberg, • 226 

Educational Establishment at Hofwyl — Principles of Education, . . . 229 
Described by Visitors, 1819, — Reminiscences of a Student, 1821, 241-263 

2. Jacob Wherli, 273 

Poor School at Hofwyl — Normal School at Kruitzlingen, 281 

3. The Industrial Element in Education, 289 

IV. PESTALOZZI AND FROEBEL, 305-368 

1. Letter of Frederick Froebel on Pestalozzi's System, .... 305 

2. Pestalozzi's Mother's School and Frokbel's Kindergarten, . . 353 
V. FATHER GIRARD AND OTHER SWISS EDUCATORS, 369-384 

Zeller — Kuratli — Agassiz, and others, 389 

VL SWISS PEDAGOGY IN OTHER COUNTRIES, 385-512 

1. Pestalozzi in the Literature of the World, ....... 385 

2. Pestalozzi and the Popular School of Germany, ..... 401 

3. Pestalozzianism in France, 429 

4. Pestalozzianism in Great Britain, 437 

6. Pestalozzianism in the United States, 453 

6. Influence on Popular Music, 463 

7. Influence on Schools of Agriculture and the Arts, .... 489 

8. Louis Agassiz in the United States, 497 

VII. SELECTIONS FROM THE PUBLICATIONS OF PESTALOZZI, . . . 613-735 

1. Leonard and Gektrude; a Book for the People, 611 

Translated from Original Edition of 1781, 621 

School at Bonnal, •.•••... 655 

%. Christopher and Alice, 1782, ..•••. 665 

School and Home Education Combined, ........... 667 

8. Bow Gertrude Teaches her Children, .......... 662 

(1) Pestalozzi's Record of his Educational Experience, ...... 671 

(2) Methods of Elementary Instruction, 676 

Sound and Speech — Form— Geometry — Drawing — Number, . . • . 677 

4 A Christmas Eve Discourse, 702 

Delivered to his Family School in 1810, 702 

5. New Year's Address, 1809, 712 

6. Seventy-Second Birthday, 714 

7. Paternal Instructions, ..••••.... 720 

Bequest of Father Pestalozzi to his Pupils, ......•.•. 725 

8. The Evening Hour of a Hermit, ••••.•. 721 

Key to Pestalozzi's Educational Labors — 1780, ....•••*. 723 
INDEX 734 

Subscriptions, payable on notice by Postal that the volume is ready far delivery, 

all be resided by Henry Barnakd, 28 Main Street, Hartford, Conn. 



FROEBEL, KINDERGARTEN, AND CHILD CULTURE PAPERS. 

RepubliBhed from Barnard's American Journal of Education in a Volume of 720 pages, in 
fartherance of the objects of the American Froebel Union. 

CONTENTS. 



Introduction— Development of the Kindergarten i— xvi 

1. Lbtter of Editob op American Journal op Education iii 

2. Letter OF Mias B. P. Peabodt v 

Progress made in Europe vii 

Beginnings made in the United States zi 

I. FROEBEL AND HIS EDUCATIONAL WORK, 
M;«moir of* yi>e<a.erich. August Froebel 9-128 

1. Pbincipal Events in his Personal History 11 

2. Principai, Events in the Proebelian Circle 15 

.Adds to the XJnderstanding of Froebel 17 

1. Autobiographical Sketch op Home and School Training 21-48 

Letter to Duke of M einingen . 21 

Early Childhood— Loss of Mother— Lofal Influences 22 

Family Life— First Entrance into School— Key to Inner Life 23 

Joy and Strength in Self-Activity— Discordants— Harmony of Nature 24 

Reconcilement of Differences— Life away from Home 20 

Physical Growth and Play— Religious and Social Culture 29 

Influence of Manner on Pupils— Choice of Vocation 30 

Passion for Theatricals- Studies at Jena— Botany— Zoology 33 

Death of Father— Land Surveying— Shelling's Bruno 34 

Philosophy and Art— Influence of Nature— Architect 35 

Choice of Teaching for Life Work— Model School— Private Tutor 37 

Life as an Educator— Play, Activity, and Gifts 41 

Residence with Pestalozzi 1808-1810— Study of Pestalozzianism 42 

Studies of Language and Natural History in Gfittingen 43 

Lectures in Berlin University— Experiences of Soldier's Life 45 

Acquaintance with Middendorff and Lanyuthal— Museum of Mineralogy 46 

Supplement by Dr. W. Lange 47 

2. Fboebel's Studies in Pestalozzianism— Basis op His Own System 49-68 

Letter to the Princess Sophia of Schwarzburg Rudoldstadt, 1820 49 

Aim and Subject of Pestalozzi's Pedagogy— Man in his Totality 49 

The Child as a Sentient Being- The Book for Mothers 50 

Development by the conscious inspection of Nature— Senses 52 

The Book for Mothers never completed— Language 54 

Law of Contrasts and their Reconcilement 55 

Exaltation into a Culture of lutelligence and Sympathy 5(1 

Discrimination— Imitation— Power of Rythm 57 

Computability— Ideas of Number— Method with Objects 5S 

Form— Elementary Ideas— Educative Influences of Play 59 

Manner of handling Subjects of School Instruction 61 

Not by Books, but by Real Objects and Intuitior.s 62 

Teachers must be penetrated with the true spirit and trained 62 



FEOEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL WORK. 

Assistants— Pnpila in training for teaching 63 

Organization of a School of Eighty Pupils— Two Divisions 63 

First Division composed of Children under Eight Years— Nurture 63 

Second Division — Lower and Upper Class 63 

Upper Class— Study and Productive Industries— Technology 61 

Every Subject treated in Organic Unity of the Child and Pupil 65 

Every Member of the School must be regular and punctual 65 

Special Educational Aims— Oi-der and Progressive Growth 65 

Possibility of Introducing Pestalozzi's method into Families 66 

Connection of Ele.neutary Instruction with higher Scientific Culture 07 

8. Laxge's Remininiscenses op Feoebel 69-80 

Froebel at Hamburg in 1849— Address to Women's Union 69 

What is New in Froebel's Airh and Method 71 

Fundamental Ideas of Rousseau, Pestalozzi, and Froebel 72 

Diestervveg'ti Adaptation of Pestalozzi's Views to Popular Schools 73 

Personal Relations of Froebel— Experience in Teaching 74 

Development of Individual Men and the Race— Macrocosm and Microcosm.. 76 

Family School at Grieaheim— Institution atKeilhau — Marriage 77 

Publication 1819— 1826— Institute at Wattensee—F. Froebel and Barop 79 

Girls School at Willisau — Official Report of Berne Cantonal Commission 80 

Educational Institute for Orphans, and Teacher's Class at Burgdorf 80 

Genesis of the Kindergarten at Blanken'oerg in 1837 81 

Come let us live with our Children — Kindergarten in Dresden in 1839 81 

4. The Kindergarten— Genesis, Name, and Objects 82-96 

(1) Winthur— Froebel's First Announcement to Barop in 1829 82 

Letter from Burgdorf in 1836 to the Froebelian Circle 82 

Inauguration of plan at Blankenberg in 1837— Sonntagsblat S3 

Appeal to the Women of Germany at Guttenberg Fe^^tivaI 1840 83 

Foundation of the Universal German Institution at Keilhau 84 

Publication of Die ilutte?' und A'osefief^cr— Pictures, Piny and Songs 84 

Explanation of Gifts for Play— Movement, Plays, and Songs 85 

Intercourse with Nature and Social Plicnomena 87 

Domestic Education improved by Kindergarten Pupils 88 

Women to be trained as Mothers and Nurses 89 

Organic Connection between the Kindergarten and School 90 

(2) Payne — Froebel's Interpretation of the Activity of Children 91 

Play the Natural Occupation of the Child in its normal state 92 

Theory in Practice— Gifts for the Culture of Observation 93 

Objections to the System Considered 95 

6. Barop— Critical Moments in Froebel's Institutions 97-104 

Financial Difficulties in Keilhau 97 

Froebel's Training Institute at Marienthal — Marriage 97 

Son of a Prince taken into the Institution — Visit to Switzerland 100 

Difficulties from Priestly Opposition— Interposition of P.'yrt'er 101 

Meeting of the Cantonal Teachers for three months at Burgdorf 103 

Origin of the name Kindergarten 104 

6. Zeh— Official Inspection AfrD Commendation of Keilhau 105-110 

Disturbance in Government Circles about Burchenschai'teu 105-110 

Suspicions of Barop in 1824— Withdrawal of Children 1:15 

Froebel's Faith in God in the Darkest Hour — Idea of Kindergarten 100 

Teachers reported in 1824— Testimony to their Fidelity 108 

Unity of Life iu Teachers and Pupils— Institutional Teaching 109 

7. Unity OF Life— Ideal AND Actual 111-115 

8 Prussian Interdict of the Kindergarten 116 

9. Last Days— Marknholtz, and Middendorfp 117-124 

Teacher's Convention at Gotha— Last Illness— Funeral 1 17 

10. Collected Writings, by Dk. W. Langb 125-126 

Preface AND Contents 125 

11. Publications relating to Froebel and his SvsTii.-n 127-128 



FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL WORK. 5 

II. FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAIi SYSTEM. 

Educational Vie\vs as Expounded. >)y I^riends 129-^00 

I. WiUiam Bliddendorff. 129-144 

Memoir and Edacational Work 129 

Tlioughts on the Kindergarten— Devotion of a Life 142 

II. Freidrich Adolpli Willielni Diesterweg 145-100 

Acceptance and Advocacy of Froebel's Child-Culture 151 

III. Bei-tlia V. MarenHoltz— Bulow 149-2S8 

1. Memorial of a Wonderful Educational Mission 145 

2. Publications in Elucidation of Froebel's Tueoriks 199 

The Child— Nature, and Nurture According to Fkoebel 109 

1. The Child in its Helplessness and Infinite Capacities 161-169 

(1) Relations to Nature— Subject to her Laws 162 

(2) Relations to Humanity— The Individual shares the Destiny of the Race. . 163 

(3) Relations to God— Lives and Progress for a Higher Development 166 

Woman— The Educator of Mankind— Develops the Child in all its Relations. ... 169 

S. Earliest Developments op the Child 170-179 

Physical Movements— Prompted by Necessities of its Bemg 170 

Exercises of the Limbs— Sense of Touch — The Hand 171 

Shaping and Producing— Constructions in Sand an^i C^ay : 172 

Sense of Sound— Cradle Songs— Rythm— Awakening of Feeling 174 

Material Needs— Gardening— Its Pleasures 175 

Desire to know why, whence, and wherefore — Comparison 176 

Social Impulse— The Basis of Moral Cultivation 177 

Religious Instinct— Follows Social Development 177 

God through Nature— Natural Phenomena Symbolic 178 

8. Froebel's Theory of Education ok Development 181-189 

Education is Emancipation- Setting free bound up Forces 181 

Natural Order, or Progress according to Law— Race 182 

Pestalozzi's endeavor to discover and apply the principle 183 

Froebel claims to have completed the method 18.3 

Chief Aim of Education is Moral Culture 183 

All Instruction and Developing E.tercises should perfect the Soul 184 

Law of Opposites and their Reconciliation 187 

Theory requires Freedom, Assistance, and Unity 189 

4. Errors in Existing Education of Early Childhood 190 200 

Physical— Bad Nursing, and Insufficient Pood and Exercise 190 

Moral— Improper Surroundings and Treatment — 191 

Intellectual— Want of Direction and over Stimulant 193 

Requisites for Healthy Growth in well directed Activity 194 

Educative Uses of Playthings and Play— Evolution of Ideal 196 

Necessary Force exists in Mother's Love if properly trained 200 

5. Froebel's Method OP Development 101-218 

Meaningof Method— Both General and Special 203 

Object of Thought— Perception, Observation, Comparison, Judgment 204 

Comparison or Reconciliation of Opposites 204 

Pestalozzi's Fundamental Law— A. B. C, Form, Number, Language 205 

Differences between Education and Instruction 20<i 

Feeling and Willing— Good and Beautiful— Self and Others 206 

Insufficiency of Pestalozzi's Doctrine of Form 207 

Law of Balance, universal and beneficial 211 

Mystic side of Froebel's Principles 212 

6. The Kindergarten 219 226 

The Child World as it appears to an outsider 219 

Movement Games with explanatory Songs 219 

Occupations— in playful work and workful play 220 

Ideal and useful Art— Cabinet of Collections and Products 221 

Choral melody— affectionate and reverential 2-^^ 

Kindergarten work begins in the Mother's Lap 223 

Should be continued in all girl schools and education 223 



Q FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL WORK. 

Freedom of Development— Suitable Condition 228 

Work or Activity for Development 223 

TJnity or Progression— Continuity of Development 224 

Hindrances to the Realization of the Kindergarten 225 

T. The Mother Plat and Nursert Songs 227 

Book for Moti^ere the basis of Froebel's System 227 

Its Philosophy best felt by Children and Mothers 228 

First Development goes on in play, which must be assisted 229 

Examples given based on the instincts of infancy 230 

8. Earliest Development op the Limbs 231-232 

Popular Nursery Games originate in the Motherly Instinct 231 

Exercises of the Hand, Fingers, and Wrist ...232 

9. Child's First Relation TO Nature 239 

Games should deal with Natural Phenomena 233 

The Weather Cock— The Sun-Bird- The Child and the Moon 234 

Farm Yard Gate— Little Fishes— Bird Song 337 

10. The Child^s First Relations TO Mankind 200 

Mother— Family Circle and Life— Neighborhood 240 

Froebel's Introduction to their Relationships 241 

Finger Games- Physical, Mental, and Moral Uses 242 

First Impressions in Critical Moments most lasting 243 

First Walk, Fall, Fright, Pain— Game of Bopeep— Confidence 244 

Cuckoo game — Conditions for Indulgence — Habits 245 

First step to moral development— High expels the low 247 

Sense of Taste— Germs of aesthetic Culture— Moral Freedom 249 

Handicrafts and other Industrie* — Movement Games 251 

Habitation— Instinct for— Constructive Tastes and Habits ; 252 

Value of Manual Labor— Respect for the Laborer 253 

Sense of hearing and vocal organs— Voices of Nature 254 

Drawing, ideal and productive— Froebel's Occupations 257 

Foundations laid for social development in family and life 259 

11. The Child's First Relations to God 261-278 

Belief in God, inborn, intuitive, and can be developed 261 

First step through the love and trust in its Mother 261 

Choral Melodies— Gestures, and words of reverence— Prayer 262 

Personal Activity and Experiences— Symbolic Interpretations of Nature 263 

Froebel's Mother Book— Child's own Story and History Book 269 

Inner conscious life not possible with children 275 

Pictorial Representations deepen Impressions 271 

Christ as a Divine Child— God manifest in Man 275 

Church services for Children— Analogies in Nature 277 

Early Education must be based on religion 278 

12. Summary View OP Froebel's Principles 279-280 

Education begins and ends with Life 279 

Follows natural laws, and must be guided by intelligence and love 279 

Mothers and Kindergartners must be trained 280 

Supplement to Child's Relations to God 281-288 

Child Life in Christ. By Rev. Stopford Brooke 281 

IV. Congress of Pliilosophers at Fi-anlifort, in 1869 289-336 

Problem of Popular Education in Pedagogical Section, 289 

Report op Prop. J. W. Fichte, Embodying Conclusions 291 

1. Education the Problem of the Age 291 

2. Philosophical Systems in the Educational Problem 295 

Fundamental Principles of Herbart and Beneke examined 293 

8. Pschological Basis of Modem Pedagogy 305 

4. Axioms of All Christian Pedagogy 312 

6. Pestalozzianism the basis of National Systems 318 

6. Froebel's additions to Pestalozzi solve the Problem 322 

7. Education of Childhood according to Froebel 327 

8. Day Nurseries for Neglected Children 332 



\ 



) 



FEOEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL WORK. 7 

v. International Congress of KdNcation at Brussels, in 1 SSO 337-400 

Papers on the Value, and Further Extension op Froebel's Views 061 

1. Fischer — President of Froebel Society in Vienna 839-362 

Grounds on which Froebers system is assailed, examined 381) 

Kindergarten should prepare for school 349 

Kindergartners should have a special training 347 

2. Gun.LiAUME— Member of Belgian Educational League 353-3C8 

Froebel's system extends beyond the Kindergarten age and culture 363 

Cardinal idea of his Education of Man — Force in Nature 355 

Extension of the Gifts and Occupations into the School period necessary 358 

Letters to Emma Bothman in 1852— Kindergarten and School 3&i 

Language — How Lina learns to write and read — Excursions 364 

Number — Form and Dimensioa— Material for Intermediate Class 365 

III. THE KINDERGARTEN AND CHILD CULTURE. 

progressive ImprovenaerLt of Mianiaals and. nVXetlnotis.. 369^50 

1. A-B-C Books and Primers .369-378 

Persian— Chinese — Greek — Latin A-B-C 369 

Primer— Catholic and Protestant 373 

English Primer of Henry VIII— Horn Book illustrated 373 

2. A Guide for the Child and Youth 375 

Rules for the Behavior 

Part One— Alphabet, Prayers, Graces and Instru ctions 375 

Symbolic Alphabet. In Adam's Fall, &c 376 

Rules for Behavior at Home, School and Church 378 

Modifications in New England Primer enlarged 379 

3. The New England Primer with Shorter Catechism 379-100 

Historical Data— Webster's Reprint in 1844 of Edition of 1777 379 

Illustrations— John Hancock — Adam's Pall— Mr. John Rogers at the Stake.. . 381 
Infant Songs and Prayers— Letters. large and small— Syllables, short and long.. 382 

Who was the first Man ? — Lessons for Youth — Commandments — Creed 386 

Mr. John Rogers' Advice to his Children 388 

Shorter Catechism of the Westminster Assembly of Divines 390 

Mr. John Cotton— Spiritual Milk for American Babes 396 

Dialogue between Christ, Youth, and the Devil 398 

4. The Petty Schoole. By C. H., 1659 401-413 

How to teach little children to say their letters, to spell, and to read 403 

How children who don't study Latin may be employed 408 

Hints for providing a Petty School, and its daily and weekly routine 410 

5. The English Schoolmaster. By Edward Coote 414 

Title Page— The Schoolmaster's Cautions 414 

6. Orbis Sensualium Pictus 415 

Janua Linguarum of W. Bateus in 1615 415 

Janua Reserata of Comenius in 1631 415 

English Edition by Charles Hoole in 1658 415 

Encyclopedia of things subject to Senses 415 

Woodward's Gate of Sciences, 1658 416 

7. The German Teacher's Path Finder— By Dibsterweg 417-450 

Dr. Busse— Intuitional, or Object Teaching in 1S73 417 

(1) Aims and Methods — Teaching by Inspection or Intuition 417 

Historical Development from Bacon to Diesterweg 421 

Difi'erent kinds of Intuitions for Object Teaching 430 

(2) The Method and its Rules 4.3:3 

Actual Inspection of real material— and doing 433 

Easy to ditficult— Simple to complex — Concrete to abstract 434 

Instruction according to Material, and Individual Child 434 

Use of Poetry and Conversation 435 

(3) Best Guides and Aids for Observation, Thinking, and Language 435 



8 KINDERGARTEN AND CHILD CULTURE. 

Eindergarten. Work in. JDiflferent Co\antries 451-73(1 

L Madame Henrietta Bretmann Schbaser 451 ' 

Proebelian Institute iu Berlin 453 

U. Mabame de Portugal!,— Geneva 473-480 

Value and Extension of the Kindergarten Principle... 473 

HI. The Creche, and Child Culture in France 481-488 

Day Nurseries— Infant Asylums — Training Institute 481 

rV. Kindergarten AND Child Citltuke in Belgium 489-512 

1. Public Kindergartens in Brussels 492 

2. Intuitional Teaching in Model School 497 

V. Recent Kindergarten Publications in England 513-528 

1. Hindrances and Encoueasembnts in Kindergarten Work 513 

2. Use of Natural and Household Phenomena 523 

3. Relations op Kindeegabten to Infant Schools 526 

VI. Kindergarten Work in United States.. B29-73C 

A. Examples of Training Institutes and Kindergartens 5.35 

1. Boston Training Class and Kindergarten 535 

2. Mrs. Maria Boelte-Kraus.— Reminiscences of Kindergarten 'Wobk8...5.39 ^ 

New York Training Institute and Kindergarten 5.37 

3. Experience of New York Female College 657 

B. Papers in Elucidation op Froebel's System 561-736 

1. Froebel's Principles and Methods in the Nubsert. Mm PeaSody. 561 -574 

Helplessness of Infancy— Getting Possession of its Organization 561 

Froebel's Use of the Natural Instincts— Uses of the Ball 506 

S. The Mother Plat and Nubsert Songs. 31iss Susan E. Blow 575-504 

Unity of Human Life— Germs of all Faculties 578 

3. Some Asfbcts op the Kindergarten. Miss Susan E. Blow 595-616 

Froebel's Dealing with Natural Phenomena 595 

Daily Talks— Doing and Expressing— Occupations 601 

Laws of Intuitional Teaching 607 

4. Froebel's Principles in Public School Ststem. Miss Pedbody 617-624 •/ 

Quality of Education to be considered— Special Training .617 

5. Kindergartens the First Grase in Citt System. W. T. Hanis 625-642 

Conditions Precedent— Ideal Kindergartens 625 

General and Special Disciplines— Transition from Home to School 629 

Eelation to Trades— Moral Discipline— Education of Play 631 

Practical Conditions Necessary to Succecs 639 

6. Kindergarten Methods is Primart Schools. Mrs. Louise Pollock. . .643-653 

Lecture to the Public School Teachers of Washins;ton 643 

T. The Public and Charity Kindergarten. Mif!s Peabody 651-653 

Miss Quincy's Shaw in Boston— Miss Blow in St. Louis 651 

8. Influence op Kindergarten Training on Homes. 3frs. H. Mann.. .654-664 

Homes of the extreme Poor— New Element of Sweetness and Light 658 

9. Kindergarten Work in California 665-672 

Miss Marwedel— Young Women's Christian Association 665 

Silver Street Kindergarten — Kindergarten Workers 6<)8 

10. Kindergarten Training for Artist and Aetisan, Miss Peahody 673-673 

A Primary Art-School— Play converted into Habits 673 

Special Training in the Kindergarten 676 

11. Clay Modeling for Home and Kindergarten. Edtvin A. Spring 679-6S5 

12. Free Kindergarten and Workingman's School. Felix Adler. . . . 686-690 

13. Use of Colors in Teaching Musical Notation. D. Batchelor 691-701 

14. Free Kindergarten in Church Work, R.Heber Newton 705-730 

15. Kindergarten for Neglected Children 731-7:16 

Barnard's Kindergarten Papers, Hartford, Ct., 736 pages, will be sent by mail on 

receipt of $3.50 



INDEX TO KINDERGARTEN PAPERS. 

[AMERICAN FROEBEL UNION EDITION.] 



A-B-C Books, and Alphabet Teaching, 371, 402. 
A-B-C of Perception, Pestalozzi, 205, 323, 360. 
A-B-C illustrated in New England Primer,, .383. 

How taught in Hoole's Petty Schoole, 402. 404. 
Dice and Pictures, Trencher and Wheel, 403. 
Abel, Carl, law of opposites, 801. 
Abstract and concrete, 501. 
Activity, Instinct for, TO. 170, 218, 619. 

Pleasurable, is play, 639. 
' Regulated for a result, 224, 533, 619. 

Law of Human Development, 223, 639. 
Adler, Kindergarten Work, 668, 687. 

Free Kindergarten in N. S., 687. 

Workingman's schools, 689. 
Action, or doing. 224. 
Admission to Kindergarten, 494. 
Adolf, Henry, Benefactor of Hamburg, 8. 
Advanced class in Kindergarten, 470, 552, 560. 
Aesthic Intuitions, Nature of, 512. 

Earliest germs can be cultivated, 249. 
Aldrich, Mrs. A., Visit to Berlin Kindergarten, 465. 

Mrs. Schrader's Work in Berlin, 451. 
Allegories, use in Education, 486. 
Allen, Nathaniel T., 6.50. 

Kindergarten in Family School in 1864, 6.50. 
Allston, Washington, Picture of Uriel. 573. 
Alphabet and Spelling, how taught, Hoole, 401-404. 
American Froebel Uiiion. 15. 
American Journal of Education, 3, 75. 
Amusement, the law of the nursery, 677. 
Analogies of tone and color, 257, 692. 

Material and spiritual things, 238, 277, 604. 
Angelic feature in human nature, (i37, 712. [497 
Anschauungsunterricht, teaching by intuition, 417, 
Antagonism— School and Kindergarten,353.468, - 
Anthbn Memorial Church Kindergarten, 729. 
Antithesis, or Doctrine of Opposites, 602, 636. 
Aphorisms on early training, 737, 759. 
Appetites, to be regulated, not extinguished, 250. 
Approbation. Love of in children, 248, 587. 
Architecture and equipment of Kindergarten, 492. 
Arrastrofl', W.. Object teaching — its history, 444. 
Aristotle, on early culture of children, 740, 761. 

Man— educated and uneducated, 637. 
Arnold, Matthew, cited, 707. 
Art, ill its general sense, 621,752. 
Art, High, is always simple, 673. 
Art Education, Kindergarten the first step. 67.3, 631. 
Artist and Artisan, Cardinal Wiseman, 673, 684. 
Artistic, applied to industry, 255. 678. 
Art and Philosophy, Froebel's choice between, 35. 
Arts and Trades, in schools as they are, 631, 687. 

AlliFroebel's games develope some aptitude, 630. 
Associations, for educational purposes, 243. 

Families for child- culture, 243.6.30. 
Astronomy, in intuitive teaching, "i04 
Asylums for dependent children, 485, 566, 712. 

Historical Development, 485. 

General aspect of inmates, 566. 
Assistants, 514, 641, 723. 
Attractive, how school can be made, .509, 658. 
Attendance at Kindergarten— half time, 494, 641. 
Attention, power and habit of, 635. 
Atherton. H. B., Kindergarten in Nashua, 12. 
Autobiography, Froebel's letter, 21-48. 

Mrs. liraus-Boelte, 537-550. 
Axioms of Christian Pedagogy, Fichte, 313. 



Bacon, F., father of realism and real schools, 421, 498. 

Essay on Education, and Influence, 761. 
Babes, American, Cotton's Spiritual milk for, 396. 

German Kindergarten treatment, 465. 
B.i by-class in Kindergarten. 468. 
Balance, Froebel's law of, 187, 211. 
Ball in Froebel's Gifts, 358, 567, .571. 

Red and the Cube, .358, 567, 604, 570. 
Barnard, Henry, Letter to Miss Peabody, 3. 

Educational Publications, List, 761. 

Kindergarten and Child Culture Papers, 3, 791. 
Barop, Arnold, educational labors, 18,79,97. 

Experience in Switzerland, 97, 104, 
Basedow, Normal School at Dessau, 423, 424, 761. 

Plates of Elementary book, by Chodowiccki, 423. 

Von Rochow, Salzman, and Campe, followers,423. 
Batchellor, D., Colors in teaching music, 16, 692. 

Analogies of Tone and Color, 692. 
Beauty, and beautiful defined, 210, 752. 

Composed of form, color, sound, etc., 210. 

In nature and art. sense of, 7.52. 
Belgium,— Infant school, Gardiennes, 489. 

League, or institute of Instruction, 337. 

Kindergarten Work, 489, 761 

Marenholtz-Bulow's Kindergarten work. 489. 
Beneke. F. E., principles of education. 300, 761. 
Berlin, Kindergarten, Mrs. Schrader, 451-168. 

Teachers' convention. 289. 
Berry and Michoelis — K. songs and games, 765. 
Bibliography of Kindergarten, 127, 167, 785. 
Birds' Nest, 237, 680. 

Blankenburg, Froebel's Kindergarten, 47, 83. 754. 
Blow, Miss Susan E., Kind, in St . Louis. 11 , 641. 

Mother play and nursery songs, 575-594. 

Some aspects of the Kindergarten, 595-016. 
Blue, in color and music, 696. 
Body, and its health, 2.31, 314. 

Object of study— Pestalozzi, 51. 
Boelte. Maria Kraus. 10, 15, 551. 

Recollections of Kindergarten work, 537. 
Boileau, cited, 509. 

Bo-])eep. Game of, moral significance, 244. 
Borschitzky, J. F., Songs for Kinder., 543, 705. 
Boston Normal Kindergarten. 559. 
Botany, Froebel's partiality, 212, 367,524. 

Pestalozzi's use, 59. 
Bothman. Emma, Froebel's letter to, 362. 
Bradley, Milton. Kindergarten material, 14, 775. 
Breymann. Henrietta. Mrs. Schrader, 451. 
Brooke, Stopford, Child-life in Christ, 281. 
Brown. T., Philosophy, cited. 564. 
Browning, Mrs. E. B., cited. 583, 733. 
Brussels, Public Kindergartens, 491-496. 

International Congress of Education, 337. 
Building, Infant's fiVst eflbrts in, 173. 
Buildings and Equipment for Kindergarten, 455. 

Progler's Report, 769. 

Bradley's and Steiger'e List, 775. 
Buisson, cited, 497 

Bnls. C, Report on public Kindergartens. 491. 
Burdach's theory of child-life, 2.30. 
Burgdorf, Froebel's course for teachers, 80. 
Burschenschaften, Unpopularity attached to Keil- 
Bushnell, H., Christian nurture, 709, 737. [ban, 97. 

Importance of the earliest impressions, 7-38. 
Busse, F., Intuitional or object teaching, 417-50. 

791 



792 



INDEX TO KINDERGARTEN PAPERS. 



California, Kindc-rgarten work, 665, 731. 

Miss Marwe lei, Los Angeles, Oakland, S. F., 665. 

Young Woman's Christian Associatiou, 666. 

Jackson's street Kindergarten, 667. 

Silver Street Kindergarten, 667. 

Little Sisters' Kindergarten, 666. 

Teacher's trials and troubles. Miss Smith, 668. 

Mrs. Cooper— Miss K. D. Smith, 670, 731. 
Calisthenics, early application, 62.3, 710, 713. 
Campe, Assistant of Basedow, 423. [751. 

Carlyle's translation of Goethe on Reverence, 747, 
Carpenter, Significance of Froebel's game, 252. 
Carpentier, Maria, 488. 
Carr, Ezra C, 785. 
Casper Hauser, cited, 199. 
Catechism, Shorter, of Westminster Divines, .390. 

Influence on George Combe, 663. 
Chodowiccki, Engraver of Basedow's plates, 433. 
Channing, W. E., 745, 7.52, 762. 

Filial respect and obedience, 741. 
Character, included in education, 183, 312, 712, 717. 
Charity Kindergartens, Influence on homes, 72, 651, 

Berlin, Mrs. Schrader, 452, 456. [654. 

Boston, Mrs. Shaw, 652. 

California, 6<i5, 731, 734. 

Cincinnati, 734. 

Philadelphia, 652, 735. 

St. Louis, 651. 

New York, 087, 7.30. 
Chauncy Hall Ivindergarten, Miss Wheelock, 21. 
Chemistry, 505. 

Child Culture, Papers on, 3, 737. 761. 
Child, The, 161, 281, .308,417, 500, 562. 
Child— its nature and nurture, Froebel's ideas, 161- 

Marenholz-Bulow's Elucidation, 160, 161. [280. 

Relations to nature, 162, 232. 

Relations to humanity, 163, 240,6:38. 

Relations to God, 166, 261, 281. 
Child-Garden, 712, 725. 
Child-Life in Christ— Brooke, 281. 

Faith— Hope— Love. 283. 
Child's Paradise, 14, 638,763. 
Child's songs and poetry, 288, 340. 724. 
Child's taking possession of itself, 564. 

Learning to walk, 565. 
Child Life, Burdach's theory, 2.30. 
Children, the poor and neglected, 651, 669, 705, 733. 

At play — meaning of, 91. 
Christ, a Divine Child, Froebel's idea, 275. 
Christ, Youth, and Devil, Conversation, .398. 
Christ, the World's teacher, 561, 575. 
Christianity in education, 281, 313. 705,767. 
Christie, Alice M., Translator of The Child, 161. 
Christmas tree and presents, Froebel's use, 265, 275. 

Kraus-Boelte, 549, 554, 549. 
Church doors, and window, Froebel's game, 273. 
Church work, 6.39, 705. 
'^icero. Thoughts on earlv training, 741. 
City life for children, 5.35,' 711. 
Clap, Nathaniel, Advice to children, 400, 
Clausen, Guide to infant gardens, 8. 
Cleanliness, in children, difficulties with, 689. 
Cleanliness and physical care, 596, 659, 717. 
Coal-diggers, Froebel's game, 253. 
Co-education of sexes, 555. 
Colored balls, Froebel's, 508. 
Color-blindness, 574. 
Colored children. Kindergarten for, 735. 
Colors in teaching' music, 16, 257. 

Batchellor, use of, 16, 693. 
Combe, George, Early Childhood, 662. 

Relations of Religion to Science, 662. 
Come, let us live with our Ch Idren, 81, 226. 
Comenius, Amos, Method, 420, 422, 498 

Things, not words — Nature, not Picture, 422. 
Comparison, Habit of, 176. 
Common Schools, 533, 534. 

Common Sense, Intuitive judgment of aff'airs. 523. 
Composition, Exercises in object teachiuir, 433. 
Concentration and religious devotion, 271. 



Conception and perception, 418. 

Usually imperfect, 420. 
Concrete to Abstract, Individual to general, 434. 
Conduct, Motives to good, 713, 762. 

Result of right early training, 707. 
Conferences of Kindergartners, 560. 
Congress of Education, International, 337. 
Congress of Philosophers, 289. 

Fichte's report of action, 291. [636. 

Connections and dependences, Froebel's uses, 592, 
Conclusion, several conceptions, 301. 
Conscience illustrated by cuckoo game, 584, 585. 
Consciousness, Beneke, 300. 

Froebel, 615. 

Herbert, 295. 

Pichte, 312, 323. 
Construction, Child's efforts in, 173, 506. 
Construction and Equipment, 769. 
Continuity of development, 225. 
Contrasts, Froebel's illustrations, 359, 603. 

Pestalozzi's recognition, 55. 
Conversational method, Pestalozzi, 440. 

Marcel's method, reference, 507. 
Conversation, for language pnrjxise, 426, 471. 

Developed in object teaching, 433--450. 

Ehrlich, Exercises for, 439. 
Conversion and nurture, 729. 
Cooper, Mrs. S. B., Kindergarten Work, 731. 
Cooperation of parents and teachers, 551. 
Cotton, Jolin, first Minister of Boston, 390. 

Spiritual millt for American babes, .396. 
Counting, Game to facilitate learning, 571, 742. 
Cradle-School, 482, 485. 
Creative and artistic faculty in children. 676. 
Creche,, or day-nurseries, 333, 481, 492. 
Cram, and doing, 427. 
Crime, Causes and prevention, 762. 
Crying, 741. 
Crystalization, 356. 
Cuckoo game, Froebel's, 587. 
Curiosity to know, 175, 427. 
Currie, James, early culture, 762, 785. 
Cutting paper, 613. 
Cube and the ball. 358. 
Culture, capacity for, 295, 314. 
Cylinder, .358, 360. 

Daily Routine, Kindergarten, 219, 3.39, 408,494, 885. 
Dambeck, C, Guide to object teaching, 445. 
Dame Schools, and school ma'am, 752. 
Day nurseries, Mrs. Shaw's, 332, 468. 481. 
Debts, Inconvenience of, Froebel's, 33, 97. 
Defects, in existing popular education, 339,533,617. 

In Kindergartens, .340, 545. 
Demon of Socrates, 627. 
Definition without intuition, 321. 
Delhez, C, gymnastics for tlie senses, 502. 
Denominational schools and public schools, 705. 
Denzel, Religious and material instruction, 440. 
Desire and will, 296. 
Dessau, Basedow's normal school at, 423. 
Development defined, 181, 223, 314. 

Froebel's Law, 181, 616. 

Unity, Freedom, and Work, 224. 
Devotional exercises, in school, 412. 

Kindergarten, 276. 
Dice method, in teaching alphabet, 403. 
Diesterweg, A., Intuitions in object teaching, 511. 
Diesterweg, memoir, 145. 

Contents of Guide for Ger. Teachers, 147. 

Services and estimate of Froebel, 148. 

Characteristics of Middendorf, 135. 
Difticulties in Kindergarten work, 514. 
Dimension and form, 3(;5. 
Director of Kindergarten, 641. 
Discipline in Petty School, of 1659, 411. 

Kindergarten, 672. 
Discourai;ements in Kindergarten work, 513. 
Dogmatic teaching, 510. 
Doing and learning, learning by doing, 99, 259,314. 



INDEX TO KINDERGARTEN PAPERS. 



793 



Domestic life and economy, 88, 453, 523, 527. 

Suitable for training Kindergartners, 454, 537. 
Drawi,- „ .363, 629. 

Profebel's method of linear, 344, 506. 
Dramatic performances, 470, 569. [479, 596, 684. 
Dresden, Prankenburg's Kindergarten in 1839. 47. 

Training institute, 9. 
Drunkenness, and bad physical conditions, 350, 715. 
Duncan, Mrs., Green Pastures, 288. 
Duty, and right, reciprocal, 316. 

Ear, and hearing, 562. How trained, 257, 442, 700. 
Early childliood. Errors in education, 190. 
Early English school books, 375, 377. 
Early impressions, most lasting, 7.37. 

Should be right, and conduce to development, 279. 
Early training, authorities on, 737-752, 761. 
Aristotle, 740, 761. Montaigne, 744, 763. 

Bacon, 421, 761. Lyschinska, 448, 525. 

Bushnell, 737. Newton, 705, 

Cicero, 741. Peabody, 617, 766. 

Combe, 663. Pestalozzi, 49, 319, 763. 

Comeuius, 422, 742, 762. Plutarch, 739, 764. 

Froebel, 201, 765. Plato. 709, 740, 764. 

Frauke, 422, 462. Quintilian, 743, 764 

Goethe, 747, 762. Ratich, 421, 764. 

Locke, 423, 763. Rousseau, 423, 741, .764. 

I-uther, 420, 743. Socrates, 7.39. 

Marenholtz, 161. Schrader, 451. 

Moscherosch, 742. 
Easy, to difficult, 434. 

Eating, Childrens' habits, to be regulated, 249, 564. 
Education of man, Contents of Froebel' s treatise, 125. 
Eudcatiou and instruction, difference, 183, 207. 
Education, defined and described, 297. 
Education and a republic, 293, 5.3.3. 617. 
Educational Activity, functions, 297. 
Educational function of play, 330. 577, 6.39. 
Ehrlich, C. G., Exercises in language, 439. 
Eighth Gift, 361. 
Ehot, George, cited, 716. 
Emancipation of natural forces, 181, 355. 
Emerson, K. W., cited, .'Jfil, 604, 718. 
Emotional nature, 625, 692. 
Encouragements and rewards, 583. 
Encouragements in Kindergarten work, 518. 
End. aim and struggle for an, 37, 122. 
England, Kindergarten work. 513. 
Epochs in education of human being, 49, 625. 

Infancy, or age of Impressions, nurture, 625. 737. 

Youth, school period, 625. 

Apprenticesiiip to a vocation, 631. 

Citizenship, Occupation, 6.34. 

Church, and relations to a future, 625, 705. 
Equi])ment for Kindergarten work, 775. 
Equality, 292, 31.3, 691. 
Erasmus, Learning natural to children, 405. 
Errors in existing education of early childhood, 190. 

Physical— ignorant nursing, bad air and food, 190. 

Moral— bad surroundings and treatment, 185, 191. 

Intellectual— neglect of direction, etc., 193. 

Requisites for correcting errors, etc., 194. 
Evil, the problem of, 619, 662. 
E.TChauge and fusion, reconcilement of opp., 213. 
Excursions of pupils with teachers,. 39, 458. 462, 549. 
Exnense of Kindergarten instruction, 473, 610. 

Unnecessary toys, 16, 85, 741. 
Experience, lessons from, 247, 577. 
E.xpulsive power of higher tastes, 249. [563. 

Bye, Education b}"^ color, form, position, etc., 441, 

Proebel's process, 622. 

Pacts, not words— Goethe, 428. 
Fables, use in moral instruction, 449. 
Faculties, Development of, not cram, 181. 
Faith, Children's in mother, 233, 661. 

Faith in God, 284, 566, 615. 

Froebel's, in his mission, 97, 122, 144. 
Fall, or original sin, 315. 
Fall, a child's first, 243. 



Family, a divine institution, 124, 654. 

Pestalozzi's use of, 5.3-60, 523. 
Family associations, 243. 

Gallaudet's suggestion, 530. 
Family egotism, and general benevolence, 214. 
Failures made instructive, 681. 
Family life for young females away from home, 335, 

Training for, and in, 537, 625. 
Family life with morally exposed children, 731. 
Farm life, for neglected city children, 481. 
Farm-yard gate, Proebel's game of, 2.36. 
Faults of children, sympathy with, 245. 
Fear, in school or family government, 247, 549. 

Associated with reverence, 748. 
Feeling defined, 302. 

Feeling and willing right is morality, 119, 676. 
Female education, 83, 134, 762. 
Feudalism, 292. 
Pichte, J. G. V. Report for Cong, of Philoe., 291. 

A-B-C of Perception, 325, 837. 
Fifth Gift. 756, 776. 
Finger-games, Froebel's, 242. 
Finger piano forte, Froebel's game, 255. 
Fishes. Froebel's game of the little, 2.37. 
First gift, Froebel's, explained, 85. 95. 570, 755. 
First impressions, a child's, 279, 575, 708, 737. 

Fault or fall, 243, 315. 

Notice by others, 248. 

Reverence for God, 747. 
Fischer. A. S., at Brussels Congress, 339. 

Further development of Froebel's system, 339. 

On Ball, Cube, and C3'linder, 358. 
Fitting, Froebel's methods to their end, 519. 
Florence, Mass., Hill's Kindergarten, 465. 
Folding material and method. 3.ol, 613. 
Food, furnished to chariti- Kindergartens, 554. 661. 
Foot excursions, Froebel's practice with pupils, 39. 

Madame Schrader, 462. 
Force, in Froebel's system, 355, 609. 
Foresters life, Froebel's choice. 31. 
Forgiveness, Prayer for, '.i63, 313. 
Form, Pestalozzi's doctrine. 59, 205. 

Froebel's modification. 207. 
Formation of Character, 183, 312, 712. 
Foundling Asylums, appearance of children, 566. 
Fourth Gift, 756, 776. 

Frankfort, Congress of Philosophers, 289. 
Frankenburg, Kindergarten in Dresden in 1839, 47. 
Free Kindergarten, 687. 
Freedom of Development, 233, 757. 
Froebel's principles and system of education, 279. 
Pranke, cited, 422, 762. 
Froebel, Christian Ludwig, 15, 11.3. 
Froebel, Ferdinand, first pupil of Freidrich, 79, 100. 
Froebel, Karl, 96. 785. 
Froebel, Friedrich August, Portrait, 1. 

Autobion:raphy,Letter to Duke of Meiningen, 21. 

Principal events in personal history, 15. 

Religious views and character, 29, 118, 723. 

Lange's reminiscences and comments, 69. 

Mother play, and nursery songs, 84, 575. 

Education of man, 354-360. 

Educational views, by Marenholtz-Bulow, 161. 

Collected writings. Contents, 125. 

As embodied in publications of his own, 125. 

Elucidated by assistants and disciples, 127, 159. 

Applicable to children of all races and placesf 73. 

Fundamental training of artist and artizan, 673. 

Identity and difference, in Pestalozzi, 72. 

Resemblances with Rousseau & Diesterweg, 73. 

Modifications of Fichte, 73. 

Uses of natural and social phenomena, 523. 

Mystic side of philosophy, 218. 

Vehemence of manner, 93, 100, 115. 
Froebelian circle, events in, 15. 

Literature, 13, 127, 159. 785. 

Stirger's list, on sale, 785. 
Fiihr, and Ortman, object teaching, 447. 
Fundamental Impulses, .307. 
Fusion, taking in and giving out, 213. 



794 



INDEX TO KINDERGARTEN PAPERS. 



Gallaudet, Thomas H., 529. 5.?1, 762. 

Plan of Infant Scbool in 1828, 529. [532. 

SugMstions on model primary schools ill 1838, 

Madame Schrader's views, 453. 
Garden, or Open Space, 41, 596, 7fi9. 
Garden and gardening for children, 174, 524, 618. 

Actual experience, 5.38. 
Garderies in France, 482. 
Gardiennes in Belgium, 489. 
Garland, Mies, law of contrasts, 15. 

BoBton Training Kindergarten, 559. 
Games, Proebel's, assist natural laws, 231, 279. — 

Finger, 242; Hand, 241 ; Movement, 566 ; Church 
door, 273 ; Coal diggers, 253 ; Cuckoo, 245, 
5&4; Carpenter, 252; Farm-yard, 236; Bo- 
peep, 244; Fishes, 237; Market, 254; Pat- 
ty-cake, 592; Riders, 248; Sun-bird, 234; 
Weather-cock, 2.33, 580. 
Games of the hand, initiate trades, 593. 
Games of the finger facilitate artistic virork, 242. 
General Discipline, 628. 
Genius, or individuality, 299-309, 417, 558. 
German Pedagogy, 319. 
Genesis of the Kindergarten, 82, 91, 114. 
German Kindergarten, Mrs. Schrader, 445. 

Aldrich, Account of visit to, 465. 

Lyschinska, Principles, 459. 
German Teachers' General Assembly, 48. 
Gesture, significance of, 263, 595, 717. 
Geography, rudimental ideas, 503, 690. 

Froebere plan, 39. 
Geography and history, associated, 690. 
Geoiogical Facts, 505. 
Geometry. :M9, 506, 611. 
Giftf , in Proebel's system, play not work, 674. 

Classification and Combination, 85. 94, 630. 

Illustrated, aud described, 754, 775. 
God, Child's first relations to, 166, 261. 

Reverence to be cultivated, 28."), 747. 

Knowledge through his works, 664. 757. 

Moral government, how taught, 663. 

Oneness with, 328, 561. 
God is love, 723. 

God-likeness, Froebel's idea, 119, 325. 
Goethe, cited, 423, 428, 595. 

Cultivation of reverence, 717. 
Golden Rule in Kindergarten, 720. 
Good manners, taught in Kindergarten, 635, 718. 
Good and beautiful, in thought and action, 208. 
Good and bad as opposit,e8,"209. 
Gotha, German Teachers' Assembly in 1852, 48. 
GOttingen University, Froebel at, 48. 
Gottzsch.interpretation of Prussian regulation,427. 
Gonrlay, Mrs. Q., and colored children, 735. 
Gracefulness and muscular training, 623. 
Grassman, F. H. G., Language teaching, 426, 435. 
Grammar, in school curriculum, 420. 

Exercises in connection with objects, 433. 
Graves, Miss, 12. 

Greediness, daintiness, and excessive eating, 219. 
Grounds and school premises, 219, 492, 769. 
Gruner, Dr., model school, 37. 
Guillianme, Jules. International Congress, 353. 

Further extension of Froebel's system, 3.53-368. 
Gymnastics adapted to little children, 219, 2.32, 543. 
Guides and manuals, 708, 783. 
Gurney, versions of Froebel's songs, 23.3, 253, 255. 

Habits, Formation of good, 70, 684. 
Habitation, Froebel's use of the instinct of, 253. 
Half-holidays, 412. 
Hailman, W. N., Kindergarten work, 13. 

Editor of Kindergarten Messenger, 14. 

Publications, 78. 
Haines, Henrietta, first Kindergarten in N, Y., 11. 
Half-time for public Kindergartens, 641. 

Economy of space and teachers, 641. 
Hamburg, first Kindergarten. 1849, 134. 

Froebel's public address, 47. 
Hand, Education of, 172, 253. 684. 
Hand games, Froebel's, 241, 25 1, 261, 279. 



Hand-signs in teaching music, 701. 
Handicrafts aud other industries, 251, 6S3, 680. 
Hanschmann, Life of Froebel, 358. 786. 
Harder, F., Hand-book of object teaching, 443. 
Harmonica. Froebel's use of, 2.56, fiSO. 
Harnisch, W., speaking, writinL'. and ohi-er., 4.35. 
Harmony, corporation of all the parts, 210, 703. 
Harris, William T., 625, 786. 

Kindergartens in public school system. 625-642. 
Hay, D. R., Symmetrical beauty, cited, 673, 675. 
Health and Happiness. 614, 615" 
Healthv growth of the child, 190. 
Hearing, Training of, 502, 700. 
Heerwart, Eleonore. 544. 766. 
Heritage of predispositions, 163. 7-37. 
Heydenfeldt, Kindergarten work, 668. 
Helba, Proposed institution of Froebel at, 47, 99. 
Helplessness of infancy, .561, 621, 
Hiding Game, Froebel, 584. 
Hierarchy of Work, 091. 
Hindrances to natural development, 621, 654. 

Kindergarten work, 514. 
Hofi'mau,"Henry, 786. 

Hoftneister, Wilhelmine, Froebel's wife, 15, 78. 
Holidays, and children, 265, 549. 
Home, a divine institution, Mann, 125, 654. 

Pestalozzi, Fichte, and Froebel's views, 73. 
Home, the true Christian, 125, G54, 077, 
Homes of neo;lected children, 654. 

Influenced Dy charity Kindergartens, 657. 
Home and school. Reciprocal influence, 491, 657. 
Hoole, Charles, Author and teacher, 401, 413. 

The Petty-schoole for little children, 401. 
Hope, as a motive, 678. 
Hornbook, earliest school book, 375. 

Illustration, 416. 
Human being, 161, 621. 671. 

Human body, Pes talozzi's use in object teaching,425. 
Human race. Education of, Froeliel, 125, 216. .354. 
Humanity, Child's relation to, Froebel, 163, 240, 251. 
Humboldt, A. v., Fundamental law of Unity, 214. 
Hunter. Thomas, Kindergarten in Normal Train- 
Conditions of success, 535. [ing. 533. 
Hydenfeldt, S.. Kindergarten in San Francisco, 670. 
Hymns for children, by Watts, 381. 385. 

Poetic expression of feeling, 288, 752. 

Ideal of Life, and School, 437, 626. 
Ideas, formed out of object-impressions, 301, 419. 
Imagination, culture of, 507, 635, 758. 
Imitation, and imitation games, 251, 259. 
Imperfections of KinderKirtens, 226, 473. 
Impressions, the age of, Bushnell, 737. 

Rapid succession, 244. 

Importance of earliest,' 243, 738. 

Froebel, Kind, and child-culture, 322, 353. 
Incomplete Knowledge, 464. 
Inculcation, and Development, 297, 302. 
Individual, Helplessness of the, 638. 

Participant by education in conquests of race,638. 
Individuality, inborn, and produced, 417, 558. 

Pestalozzi, and Froebel's treatment, 72, 319, 327. 

Fichte' s treatment, .305, 311. 
Individuality and humanity, 166, 226, 569, 639. 
Indulgence to a child, when aud what, 247. 
Industry and art, 255, 536, ftil, 688. 
Infancy, age of impressions, 302. 562, 708, 737. 

Nurture period in education, 625. 
Infant schools, references, 487, 526, 529, 763. 

Historical development, 4^5. 

Gallandet's plan in 1828, 529. 
Inherited aptitudes and capacities, 163. 305, 737. 
Inner revelation, or spiritual t'.xperionc'.', 270. 
Inspection, and intuition, 419, 497. 
Instinct in animal life, 620. 

Not KufBcient lor the child, 620. 

Must be assisted by the mother, etc., 279. 
Instruction and development, diff'erence, 70, 314. 
Intellect, Growth on surroundings, etc. ,113, 193, 620, 

Neglect, conditions of healthy, 194. [873. 

International Congress of education of 1880, 337. 



INDEX TO KINDERGARTEN PAPERS. 



795 



Intermediate grade, or class, 361, 364, 366, 555. 
lutermodiate grade, or clasps, 555, 559. 

Home and school, the Kindergarten, 241, 658. 

Kindergarten and scliool, Transition, 363, 459, 

Primary school, 478, 043. 
Intuition, Defined, 419, 497. 

Suitable to the Kinderirarteii period, 501. 

Herbert. Beneke, Fichte, 295—319. 
Intuition and intuitional method— 81uys, 497. 

Defined by Littre, Kant, Lavousse, 497. 

The method— historical. 498. 

Subjects and results, 502, 507. 
Intuitional teaching, Dr. Busse, 417^50. 

Aims and principles. Historical. 417, 497 

Bacon, Ratich, Comenius. Basedow, Campe, 421- 

Franke, Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Rochow, 423. 

Vogel, Graesman, Vormanu, Otto, 427. 

Diesterweg, Different kinds of intuitions, 432,511. 

Immediate objects, trainingof the senses, etc. ,432. 

The method, successive steps, 434. 

Manuals and material, 4.35. 

Pest alozzi, knowledge from doing and seeing, 167. 
Invention encouraged by Froebel's system, 676. 
Isolation of a child or man, impossible, 561 . 721. 

Relations to nature, fellows, God, 162-169. 
Israelitish people, Goethe's tribute to, 749. 
Iw, Kindergarten lesson for children, 461. 

Occupations connected, 462. 

Jacob's manual for infant gardens, 563, 7.58. 
Jarvis, Miss Josephine, 15. 

English version of Froebel's system, 128. 
JeanPaul Richter, cited, 196, .32S. 
Jena University, attended by Proebel, 33. 
Jesus Christ, a Divine Child, 275, 626. 

Teachings respecting children, 281. 

Children's longings for, 288. 

Christmas trees and presents, 275, 549. 

Influence in Froebel's own education, 29. 119. 
Joiner, Significance of Froebel's game of, 251, 252. 
Judgment, cultivation of sound, 507, 523. 

Cited, 315, 316, 418, 497, 760. 
Juvenile literature, 531. 

Kant, Table of the inner sense, 418. 
Keilhau, Froebel's German Educational Inst.,|77. 
Keeping still, a paralyzing process, 621. 
Kindergarten Papers, 1, 800. 

Editor's letter to Pres. American FroebelUnion, 3. 

Contents of the volume, 3. Index, 791. 
Kindergarten. Genesis and name, 80, 82, 104. 

Aims, 219, 339, 514, 516, 548, 626. 
Kindergarten, aspects and characteristics of, by — 

Peabody.S, 561, 617, 672. Marvvedel. E., 671. 

Lange, W., 769. Schmidt, 753. 

Blow. S. E., .57.5-616. Diesterweg, 135. 

Marenholtz-Bulow, 219. Harris, W. T.. 625. 

Manning. E. A., 513. Pollock, L., 643. 

Aldrich, A., 465. Mann. M., 6.54. 

Lyschiiiska. 459, 525. Buls, C, 491. 

Schrader, 451, Newton, 705-730. 

Guiiliaume, 333. Fichte. 291. 

Adler, 689. Cooper, 731. 

Hunter, 533. Kraus, 537—558. 

Fichte, 339. Batchellor. 692. 

Fischer, 339. Spring. 677. 

Winthur, 82. Portugall, 473. 

Publications on, 765. 
Kindergarten development, 5-16. 

German States, 6, 9, 451. 

Austria and Italy, 6, .348. 

France and Switzerland, 1, H, 481. 

Belgium, 2.39. Great Britain, 7, 513. 

United States, 10, 529. 625, 679, 705. 

Interdict in Prussia in 1851, 11, 49. 

Difficulties and encouragements. 513-522. 
Kindergarten. Internal economy, 672. 

Construction, grounds, and equipment, 64, 455, 

Plays, games, andoccupat ons,456, 575. [492,769. 

Attention to personal hahits. 496. 

Registers, Inspection, Reports, 495. 



Kindergarten, Internal economy. 

Chief and assistant Kindergartners, 49-1, 641. 

Parental cooperation, 515, 551, 648, 660. 

Transition, or older class, 518, .555. 

Admission, cleanliness, etc., 496. 
Kindergartens in public system, 491, 625. 

Peabody, 617. 

Fischer. 348. 

Portugal, 473. 

Harris, 625-642. 

Pollock, 643-650. 

Buls, Brusseis'system, 491. 
Kindergarten work for neglected children, 467. 

Mann. Mrs., 654-664. 

Peabody. 651, 735. 

Adler. 687. 

California experience, 665-672. 

Cooper, 731. 

Newton, 705. 
Kindergarten principles for mothers and nursery. 

Marenholtz, 161-280. 

Kraus-Boelte. 547. 

Guiiliaume, 353. 

Peabody, 561. 

Blow, 575-616. 
Kindergartners, Special training, 533, 551. 

Fischer, 347, 

Garland, 559. 

Harris, 641. 

Hunter, 533. 

Kraus-Boelte, 537, 551. 

Peabody, 497, 561, 624, 735, 879. 

Marenholtz, 158. 

Marwedel, 671. 

Portugall, 477. 

Pollock, 647. 

Schrader, 471. [687, 714. 

Kindergartens for artist and artisan. 353, 669, 673, 
Kindergarten pupils, in school, 199, 517. 

Preparation in transition class, 363, 478, 518. 

Sub-primary, suggested by Harris, 633. 
Kindergarten", Deteriorations and perversions, 1.3, 

Marenholtz-Bulow, 226. [546, 678. 

Kindergarten Messenger, 14. 766.' 
Know, Desire to. universal. 175, 405. 
Knowledge, Applied in action, 344, 368. 
Koehler, Guide for Kindergartners. 335. 647, 786. 
Kraus, John, and Mrs. Kraus-Boelte, 537-558. 

Kindergarten guide, 15, 784. 

Work in education department, 550. 
Kriege, MatildaH-.v40, 11, 14, 787. 
Kriege, Mrs. and Miss, Kindergarten in Boston, 11. 

Instructions to her training class, 14. 
Krippen, and value, 331, 333. 

Labor problem, 685, 714. 

Labor, in education, 221, 251, 673, 682, 687. 

Lamb, Charles, cited, 620. 

Lange, \V., Reminiscences of Froebel, 69. 

Collected writings— preface and contents, 17, 125. 

Aids to understanding, 71. Middendorf. 131. 
Langethal, Froebel's acquaintance with, 15, 45, 77. 
Language, Study of, 43. 
' Busse s method with objects, 432. 

Froebel and Pestalozzi, 43, 53, 364. 

Grassmau, by conversation, 426. 

Begun by practice in Kindergarten, 442, 636. 

Harnisch, observation and conversation, 435. 

Ehrlich, observation, conversation, writing, 439. 

Richter, observation and conversation. 444. 

Fnhr, connected exercises in speaking. 447. 

Schumacher, Pictures in aid of composition, 449. 
Language of Signs, 568. 
Law of human development, Pestalozzi, 204. 

Froebel's modification, 187. 
Learning, natural to children, 175, 405. 
Leipsic, voxel's school, 425. [289. 

Leonhardi, Dr. and congress of philosophers, 158, 
Lessons. Scheme of preparation for. 463. 
Levin, Louise, Second wife of Froebel, 16, 270. 
Liberty of development, Froebel's, law, 223. 



796 



INDEX TO KINDERGARTEN PAPERS. 



Liebenstein. FroybelV location in, 47, 121. 

Pavorabk' for makin.,' h\s systcMii known, 144. 
Life, defined by Froebel, 21T, v8-;!. 
Light and truth, Analogy between, 591. 

Froebel' e use of, 591. 
Limbs, earliest development, 171, 2.31. 
Lina, how she learns to write and read, 364. 
Lind, Jenny, Musical taste, 256, 
Living teacher, and oral instruction, 763. 
Local attachment and influences, 22, 752. 
Love, as a motive, 247, 285, 549. 
Love, as a force in moral reconstruction, 200. 
Love to an invisible being, how developed, 274. 

God must become man, 119, 749. 
Ltlben, A., Instruction speaking and reading, 443. 
Lubeck — Miss Boelte's experience, 546. 

Training class for nurses, 547. 
Lunch, moral uses, 599, 690. 
Luther, M., Letter to his little son, 742. 

Plea for the intuitive method, 420. 
Liltzow free corps, Froebel and Middendorff, l.Sfi. 
Luz, G., Object-teaching for youngest classes, 410. 
Lyschinska, Mary J., the Kind, principle, 458, 525. 

German Kindergarten, 459. 

Nature, and surrounding life in early culture, 523. 

Relation to English infant school, 526. 

Macrocosmos, and Microcosm, 72. 

Magic, applied to productive art, 673. 

Mankind, or education of the race, 180, 201, 638. 

Man, in the child, 260, 575, 632. 

Man, Froebel's Treatise on Education, 49, 125. 

Mann, Horace, reference, 763. 

Mann, Mrs. Horace, Moral culture of infancy, 14. 

Kindergarten children and their homes, 654. 

Translations by, 17, 49, 69, 97, 117, 339, 353, 473, 497. 
Manner, Influence on the young, .30, 635, 718. 
Manners, making their, in old times, 380. 
Manning, Miss E. A., Difficulties in Kindergarten, 

Encouragements, 518. [513. 

Manuals and aids for Kindergarten work, 129, 159, 
Manual labor, artistic and utilitarian, 254, 673. [785. 

In ordinary and special schools, 480, 687. 
Maps, in geography, since 1800, 582. 
Marbeau, Day Nurseries, 483. 

French Treatment of Infants. 481. 
Marenholtz-Bulow, Memoir. 149-160. 

The Child, nature and nurture, 161-280. 

Summary of Froebel's principles, 279. 

Reminiscences of Froebel, 5, 117. 

The Kindergarten to an outsider, 219. 
Marienthal, Kindergarten, etc., 48, 755. 
Market-booth, Froebel's game of, 254. 
Marwedel, Emma, Kindergarten work, 665. 

Who shall become Kiudergartners, 671. 
Maternal schools, 485, 490. 
Maternal feeling and sympathy, 566. 
Material in object-teaching, choice of, 433. 

Kindergarten, 15, 16, 85, 471, 769, 775. 

Bradley's and Steiger's. 775, 785. 
Mathematical intuitions, 431. 
Mediieval Primer. 414. 
Mediation of Opposites, .328. 
Meiningen, Duke, Froebel's letter to, 21-48. 

Grant of Marienthal Castle to Froebel, 48. 
Memory, secret of, 96. 
Method, or plan of work, defined, 202. 
Methodical instruction, 203. 
Methodology, general and special, 79. 
Meyer, Mrs. Bertha, 467. 
Meyers, in Kindergarten work, 8, 527. 
Microcosmos and Macrocosmos, 72. 
Middendorff, W., and Froebel, 45, 119. 

Memoir by Lange, 131. 

Characteristics by Diesterweg, 135. 

Thoughts on the Kindergarten, 122. 

Last days of Froebel, 118. 
Milk, for young children, 468. 
Mind, Individual and generic, 638. 

Results of many-sided culture, ,595. 
Mineralogy, Froebel' e study of, 46. 



Model Kindergarten and Classes, 552. 
Modeling in clay, lor children, 172, 632, 679, 682 
Montaigne, Thoughts on early culture, 74.3, 744. 
Moon and the child, Froebel's game, 235 
Moral culture secured only by practice. 199, 676. 
Moral culture. Formation of character, 103. 

Through social life of Kindergarten, 717. 721. 

Through manners, 718. 

Out of negative self, 719. 

Industrial training, 714. 

Physical training, 713. 

Throngh happy plays and love, 711, 722. 
Moral education, foundation. 208, 675. 
Moral Government of God, 633. 
Moral intuitions, 431. 662. 
]\loral discii)line, in Kindergarten, 570. 
MorHlity and Religion, 317.510, 676, 721. 
Moreliouse, C. B. The Kindergarten, 766. 
Moseley, Criticism on object teaching, 464. 
Mother Book, Pestalozzi, 52, 3.39. 
Mothers' Conference and Class, 551. 
Mother-goose, Demoralizing pictures, 660. 
Mother-element in education, 332. 
Motherly instincts. Enlightenment of, 230, 323,501. 
Mother play and nursery songs, 84, 328. 

Marenhoitz-Bulow, 227. Peabody, 561. 

Miss Blow's treatment, 575. 
Motion, Normal condition of life, 565, 570. 
Movement plays, .363, 568. 
Muscles, once trained, act pleasurably, 631, 633. 
Museum, or children's cabinet, 221. 
Music, Instrumental, 681. 
Music, Vocal, early and continuous, 255, 257, 693. 

Should be universJil, 255, 704. 

Does not aim to make geniuses, 257. 

Froebel's use and method, 255. 
Musical Notation and Colors, 692. 
Mutter-und Kose-lieder, 84, 827 ; translated, 565. 

Basis of Froebel's lectures, 228. 
Mystic side of Froebel's philosophy, 218. 

Name of Kindergarten, 104. 
Narration, and seeing, 4.39, 471. 
National Education for the Age, 291-336, 
National strength and glory, 291. 
Nationalization of systems, 516. 
Natural scenery. Influence. 22, .37, .340, 7,^'2. 
Nature, and natural methods, 188, 279, 637. 

Abuses of the term, Harris, r.37. 
Nature, the outward world, 523, 525. 752. 

Cliild's relations to, Froebel, 162, 225. 2:^3, 

Place in early culture, Pestalozzi, Froebel,220, 523. 

Lyschinska, 525. 
Natural language, .568. 
Nationalization of educational systems. 516. 

Kindergarten belongs to humanity, 291,517. 
Neatness in clay- moulding, 683. 
Needlework and knitting. 
Neglected and destitute children, 536, 721. 

Mrs. Shaw's charity Kindergarten, 651, 657. 

California Kindergarten work, 665, 73:!, 
Neighbors, Love of, to be cultivated, 7, 657. 
Newton, R. Heber, 653. 

Free Kindergarten and church work, 705-730. 
New education, Froebel's system, 71, 626, 224, 
New England district schools, 529. 
New England Primer, Announcement in 1692. 379. 

Webster's reprint in 1844 of edition of 1777, 399. 

Endorsement of prominent divines, 380. 

Pictorial alphabet and verses. 383. [-381. 

Dr. Watts' cradle and other hymns for children 

Prayers, creed, sentences, etc.. 385. 

John Rogers, cut and advice, 388. 

M^estminster Shorter Catechism, 390. 

Cotton, John, Spiritual milk for Am. babes, 396. 

Dialogue between Christ, Child, and Devil, 398. 

Nathaniel Clap, Advice to children, 400. 
New Hampshire, Kindergarten work, 13. 
New York Citv, Kindergarten work, 11, 5.33, 551. 
Newton, R. Heber, 705. 

Kindergarten in church work, 705 — 7-30. 



INDEX TO KINDERGARTEN PAPERS. 



797 



Noa. Henrietta, plays for Kindergarten, 786. 
Nonsense verses, 133, 662. 
Normal Kindergarten, 477, 533-560. 

Berlin, 453. 

Boston, 558. 

Dresden, 158. 

New York, 551, 557. 

Philadelphia, 735. 
Normal training, for Schools and Colleges, 551, 761. 

Kiudergartners, 551, 676. 
Novitiate teachers in St. Louis, 641. 
Number, first ideas of, 58, 365. 
Nurses, Importance overlooked, 89, 548. 

Trained in Kindergarten metliods, 548, 551. 
Nursery games and songs. National, 516. 
Nursery plays and songs, Froebel, 227. [161-280. 

Froebel's views expounded by Marenholtz, 

Peabody, Lecture to young Kindergartners, 561. 

Blow, Mother play and nursery songs, 571. 
Nursery, graduates into Kindergarten, 648. 
Nurture period of education, 625, 625. 

Obedience to authorities and law, 308, 616, 741. 
Obedience, Conditions and motives for, 247, 741. 

Channing, 745. 
Obeisance, or making manners, 380, 411, 743. 
Oberliu, 485, 764. 
Objective counterpart, 609. 

Object or intuitional teaching, 169, 420. [450. 

Object teaching, aims, methods and manners, 417- 

Defined, analyzed, and described, 418. 

Historical development from Bacon, 419-34. 

Objections to, Valid as to certain kinds, 426. 

Prussian reojulation of 1854, 437. 

True grounds between the extremes, 429. [430. 

Diesterweg's enumeration of diftering intuition. 

Immediate aims, Subordinate aims, 432. 

Laws of the method in Kind, and Primary, 433. 

Manual, and aids for object teaching, 435. 
Objections to Froebel's system, 473-476. 

Expense. 473. 

Unsuitable to the Poor, 474. 

Pedagogical, 475. 

No connection with school, 476. 
Observation, Habit of accurate and rapid, 9, 432. 

Developed by Kindergarten methods, 82, 442. 

Pestalozzi's fundamental law, 445. 

Froebel's adoption and extension. 
Occupation or vocation for life, 127, 653. 
Occupations, Froebel's, 342, .361, 612, 645-7. 

Berlin Kindergarten, 45.3-470. 
Ogden, Mrs. John, Kindergartner, 11. 
Oneness with God, 41, 561. 583. 755. 
Opposites, Doctrine of, 524, 878. 

Froebel's law, 204. 

Reconcilement, 211. 
Oral Teaching, 4.36, 441, 763. 
Order, Heaven's first law, .569. 
Order of development, 304. 
Orientation, 503. 
Original sin, 282, .315, 390, 396. 
Originality, or individuality of children, 676. 
Orphan Asylums, 480, 566, 7.34. 
Ortman, J. H., Object teaching in com. schools, 447. 
Otto, of Milhihausen, Obj. teaching in schools, 428. 
Oversight of each pupil, how secured, 641. 
Over-stimulation, 303. 
Ownership, Instinct and results, 174. 

Pain, excess of sensation, 301. 
Palissy, learning by failure, 681. 
Pape-Carpentier, Madame, 488. 
Parables, Christ's use of, 277. 
Parentage, and Parents, 314, 7.37. 
Parental" feeling, 42. 

Cooperation and representation, 328, 515, 551. 
Parocliial work and charity Kindergarten, 705. 
Parochial work with neglected children, 734. 
Pastoret, Madame, infant asylum in France, 486, 
Patriotism, m-own by serving, 46. 
Patty-Cake, Froebel's game and song, 592. 



Pauper-class in United States, 691. [Krippen, 333. 
Pauline, princess of Lippe Detmold, founder of 
Payne, J., Genesis and characteristics of Kind., 91. 

Publications, 764, 768. 
Peabody, Miss E. 6., Experience in Kind., 7. 

Letter on Kindergarten development, 5-16. 

Kindergarten for "artist and artisan, 673. 

Froebel's methods in nursery, 561. 

Charity Kindergartens in U. S., 651. 

Froebel's system in Am. Pub. Education, 617. 

Training of Colored Kiudergartners, 735. 

Publications by, 768. 
Peas, method of using, 613. 
Peculiarity, inherent and inherited, 306. 
Pedagogy, library of practical, 165. 
Pedagogical theories, 295, 806. 
Perception, and sense impressions, 301, 419. 
Perfectibility of human nature, 638. 
Perforating prepared paper, 612, 63. 
Personality and self-will in children, 246. 
Pestalozzi, and Pestalozzianism, 755, 784. 

Froebel's study with in 1808, 42, 136. 

Use of phenomena of nature, 523. 

Object or intuitional teaching, 320. 

Doctrine of form, 59 ; Motives appealed, 63. 

Fundamental Law, 205. 

Great gift to Pedagogy. 320, 322. 
Petty Schoole of 1659, in England, by Hoolo. 401. 

Alphabet, 402 ; spell distinctly, 404 ; read. 407. 

Reading catechisms, and Clnistian duty, 409. 

How to found. Discipline, 411. 
Philadelphia, Kindergarten, 11. 653, 735. 
Philanthropinum, Basedow's school, 423. 

Salzman, Campe, Rochow, and others, 423. 
Philosophy and art, Froebel's choice, 35. 
Physical training in Kindergarten, 170. 
Physics, for Intuitional Metliod. 506. 
Pictorial illustrations in school work, 377. 
Pictures in school teaching, 449, 346. 
Pietism, Franke's school of, 423. 
Piety, Rule and Result, 317. 

Plato, Thoughts on play and early training, 710, 740. 
Play and playing. Educative function, 33U, 577, 639, 

Child's instinct, 91, 218. [709. 

Plays, Recreative and social, 718. 
Playthings, too expensive and artistic, 16, 81. 

Ultimate purpose, 196, 329, 3.35, 571. 
Plea for Kindergarten, Peabody, 673. 
Plutarch, Thoughts on early training, 739, 764. 
Poetry in object teaching, 434. 
Politeness, Respect for others, in manner, 30, 718. 
Pollock, Louise, Kindergarten work, 650. 

Kindergarten methods in Primary schools, 643. 

Peculiar features of the Kindergarten, 648. 
Polyhedron, office in Froebel's system, 361. 
Polytechnic schools, founded on Bacon, 421. 
Poor and neglected children. Treatment, 705. 
Popular Education and Popular Errors, 291, 295. 

Flchte, Report on Problem, 293. 
Portugall, Madame de, 8, 43. 

Extension of FroebeVs System, 473, 480. 
Portrait, Froebel, 1. 
Potter's-Clay, in Kindergarten, 683. 
Practice of quietness. School-books of 1659, 409. 
Practice, much — Precepts, few, 672. 
Practical education, so-called, 307, 628, 673. 

Trades and arts, 631, 673, 685. 
Prayers, Kindergarten, 549, 410. 

New England Primer, 381, 385. 

Marenholtz, suggestions, 687. 
Prayers for children, 385, 687, 725. 
Precocity of development, 507, 677. 
Precepts, and models and practice, 460, 486. 
Preparation of lessons, for Kindergartners, 463. 
Primary schools, and instruction, 297, 310, .314. 5.32. 

Kindergarten connections, 350, 862, 478, 535, 643. 

Discipline, unnatural, 5.3.3. 

Historical data, 411. 529. 
Primer, Mediasval, described, 414. 
Primer, the new, by Hoole, 404. 
Primer, the New England of 1777, .377, 381. 



798 



INDEX TO KINDERGARTEN PAPERS. 



Prism and Cylinder, 359. 

Private and public education, 488. 

Private tutor, Froebel's experience, 38. 

Productive labor, for a result, 607, 613, 675. 

Progler, Miss, constructions for kindergartens, 769. 

Progressive Development, 283. 

Prussia, Prohibition of the Kindergarten, 116. 

Regulation limiting intuitional teaching, 427. 

Goltzch's interpretation, 428. 
Psalms in meter. Early school-book, 408. 
Psalter, Early school-book, 408, 411. 
Psalter-class in Petty school, 411. 
Psychology in education, 295, 297, 308. 
Public Kindergartens, 491, 625, 042. 
Publications in aid of child-culture, 761, 765. 
Pupils to teacher, ratio, 620. 
Pyramid and cone, Froebel's use, 859. 

Quality of education in public schools, 617. 

Moral and Industrial Elements, 618. 
Qualifications of a Kindergaitner, 557, 647, 671. 
Questioning, Better than precept, 677. 
Questions fargely encouraged, 621. 
Quinet, Edgar, Estimate of Froebel, 624. 
Quintilian, Early training of children, 743, 764. 

Races, human, enlightenment, 183, 664. 

Education demanded for, 291, 313. 
Rogier, Kindergarten in Belgium. 487. 
Ratich, Plea for intuitive, or object teaching, 421. 
Raumer, K. von. Pedagogy, cited. 421, 764. 
Readers and reading Hoole in 1659, 407. 

Connected with ooject teaching, 440. 
Reading, in instruction of children, 436, 439. 
Receptivity of children, Age of impressions, 417, 737 

Productivity, 259, 320, 417. 
Reconcilement of opposites, 329. 
Record-books and Registers, 639. 

Brussels public Kindergartens, 495. 
Recreation, 66, 519, 614. 
Red color, significance of, 695. 
Reflection, Mental process, 635. 
Relationships of child, Nature, Man and God, 162. 
Religion and religious instruction, 324. 749. 

Child's first relations to God, 261-278, 676. 

Pestalozzi" 8 method, 265. . 

Froebel, 27, 111, 117, 261, 723. 

Combe, 662. 

Diesterweg, 512. 

Goethe, Formal Cultivation, 747, 749. 
Religious intuitions, Diesterweg, 431. 
Religion and science, 662. 
Religions instinct, 86, 97, 177, 431, 566, 166. 
Reminiscences of Froebel, Lange, W., 833. 

Mareuholtz, 117, 151, 161, 451. 

Boelte, 537. 

Middendorf, 119. 
Republicanism and education, 292, 535. 
Restrictions on play, 349. 
Reverence, gratitude and love, to God, 566. 

Middendorf, 140, 141. 

Channing and Goethe, 746, 749. 
Rhymes and Rhythm, advantages of, 170, 573, 623. 
Rhonibohedron, 357. 
Rhombodo-decahedron, 361. 

Richter, C, Object teaching in El. schools, 426,444. 
Richter, Jean Paul, cited. 
Ricthamraer, Bavarian schoolmaster, 429. 
Riders, Froebel, Game of the, 248. 
Rochow. E. von. Intuitional method, 423, 763. 
Rogers, Rev. John, and his children, 388. 

Advice to his children in verse, 388. 
Ronge. Mad., Kindergarten in Loudon 1854, 1, 8, 543. 
Rounds, Children's attempts at circles, 362. 
Rousseau, Emil E., Gospel of human nature, 423. 

Principles of Emil applied by Basedow, 423. 

Ab-ence of the mother-element, 423. 

Elevated and improved by Pestalozzi, 207, 425. 

Hints on early training, 741, 764. 
Rucket, Pastor, address at Froebel's grave, 121. 



Rudoldstadt, German educational institution, 107. 

Teacher's union at, 117. 
Riiegg, H. R., Instruction in laiigua.re. Manual, 450. 
Running wild, not development, 620. 
Rural surroundings, 535. 
Russell, William, perceptive faculties, 763. 

Salis-Schwabe, Madame, 6, 158. 

Salaries, of Kindergartners in St. Louis, 641. 

Salzman, Assistant of Basedow, 423. 

Saturday, half-holiday. 412. 

Saying lessons in Petty school, 412. 

Scattock, influence of passes, 528. 

School and Kindergarten, Differences, 363. 639. 

Bond or class of union and transition, 557, 629. 
School-discipline in United States, 637. 
School-garden, 352, 551, 557. 

School of good manners, School-book of ]().59, 409. 
School management, 78. 

Scheffel, Annette, Berlin Kindergarten, 456, 471. 
Schelling, Bruno, 35, 636. 

Schlotterbeck, Intuitive or object teaching, 440. 
Schmidt, Froebel and the Kindergarten. 753, 7.58. 
Schracler, Henrietta Breyman, Kiiid. work, 451. 

Visit to, by Mrs. Aldrich, 469. 

Kindergarten principle,by Miss Lyschinska. 459. 
Schwab, Dr. E., School Garden, 557. 
Science ^d Religion, 509, 662. 
Science of teaching, 77,80. 
Scolding and love, contrast, 549. 
Scolding children, 549. 
Sculpture, as an Art, 685. 
Second gift, nature and uses, 94, 7.55. 

Extension of uses into advanced class, 35S. 

Froebel's ot-iginal and developed vices, 3.58. 
Seed of plants. Analogy of the soul, 621, 661. 
Self-activity, 24, 42, 71, 170, 218, 314, 630. 
Self-consciousness, first token, 418. 
Self-education, 297, 309, 038. 752. 
Self-government, to be cultivated, 298. 
Self-knowledge, by personal action, 320, 638. 
Self-reliance, 87, 366. 
Self-seeking and its opposite, 204, 324. 
Self-will, and personality, 246. 

Must submit to social conditions, 247. 
Seligman, Joseph, Aid to Kindergarten, 639. 
Sensation, and Ideas, 322, 501. 
Senses, Cultivation in intuitive teaching, 432. 

Taste, 562; Touch, 442, 563. 

Sight, 441, 563 ; Hearing, 442, 561 ; Smell, 563. 
Sense, a receptivity for impressions, 417. 

More perfect in beasts, 418. 
Sense, impression, and intuitions, 418, 502, 562. 

Unity, 419 ; difference with animals. 
Sensuous intuitions from outward objects, 430. 
Seventh Gift, Nature and Uses, 766. 
Shaw, Mrs. Quincy, Free Kindergarten, 652. 

Day nurseries, 847. 
Slienstone, Schoolmistress, cited, 416. 
Shirzett, Emily, Kindergarten Publications, 786. 
Sign-language, Natural, 568. 

Sight, Training by color, form, distance. 441,574. 
Similar and dissimilar things, 176, 204, 594. 
Singing and songs, Froebel's use, 2.56, 3-10. 
Site of educational buildings, 160. 
Sitting still, unnatural to young children, 677, 565. 
Sixth Gift, Nature and Uses, 600, 645, 756. 
Sixth year of a child, 634. 
Sluys. A., Intuitive Teaching, 497. 
Smell, Training sense of, 564. 
Smiling, Child's first expression of love, 564, .567. 
Smith, Katharine D., Trials in Kindergarten, 665, 
Snell, Anna, Pupil of Middendorft', 7. 
Social Instinct, 309. 311. 566. [668. 

Social side of the Kindergartens, 177, 241, 508, 717. 
Social institutions, 431, 509. 
Social intuitions, 177, 311, 511. 
Socrates, Thoughts on early training, 739, 7)3. 
Songs and Rhythm, 256, 340, 341. 
Soul, Herbert's Idea of the, 295. Beneke's, 3r. 
Sound, Sense of, 174. 



INDEX TO KINDERGARTEN PAPERS. 



799 



Sorrow, Goethe's interpretation, 263, 751. 
Speaking and observing exercises, 439. 443. 
Spekter, O., Fifty Fables for children, 449. 
Spelling, Hoole's directions in Petty Schoole, 404. 
Spencer, Herbert, 710, 764. 
Sphere, 350, 360. 

Spiritual milk for American Babes, Cotton, 396. 
Spontaneous action, always pleasurable, 82,639,677. 
St. Louis, Public Kindergarten, 641, 766, 
St. Paul, Standard of Church work. 705. 

Kindergarten, the earliest step, 5'^8. 
State and Education, 3i7, 763. 
Steinmetz-Strasse Kindergarten, 451. [765. 

Steiger, E. , Kindergarten literature and material, 15, 

Kindtrgarten Tracts, 766. 

Designs for K. occupations, 707. 
Stick-laying and drawing, .350. 
Still, and stillness, unnatural to children, 065, 677. 
Stock well Training Kindergarten, 544. 
Story-telling and narration, to children, 347, 449,599. 
Strips of leather, paper, etc., for platting, 339. 
Stupidity, Play inconsistent with, 95. 
Style ar.d intuitive teaching — Imagination, 507. 
Suggestions on early training, 737-7.56. 
Sun-bird. Froebel's game, 234. 
Surroundings, accidental and designed. 304. 
Switzerland, Federal and Cantonal, 473, 763. [634. 
( Symbols, Natural phenomena, 99, 64, 864. 175, 590, 
i Symbolical meaning of Froebel's plays, 359, 590. 

Talks and Object Lessons, 479, 573, 599. 

Lessons in Language, 439, 479. 
Talkillu^ and teaching. 438. 
Taskt* and play, 639. 718. 
Taste and Imagination, .507, 512. 
Taste, the sense, 249, 297, 562. 
Teaching Chihlreu, Methods and manuals : 

Armstroff, 444. Haihnan, 765. 

Ascbam, 761. Hauschmann. 765. 

Bacon, 421, 488. 761. Heerwart. 765. 

Basedow, 423, 764. Hoole. 401. 763. 

Btisse, 417. Koehler. 766. 

Calderwood, 762. Kraus. 766, 768. 

Currie, 762, 765. Lancaster. 763. 

Comenius, 422, 499, 764. Locke, 763. 

Damheck, 445. LaSalle, 763. 

Diesterweg, 147, 445, 499. Luben, 443. 

Dunn. 762. Luz, 446 

Duruv. 762. Marcel. 763. 

Ehrlich, 438. MiddendortT, 131. 

Fenelon, 762. Otto, 428. 

Franke. 423. 762. Peabody, 5S5, 767. 

Froebel. 91, 125, 161, 766. Pcstalozzi, 21, 763, 764. 

Fuhr, 447. Kichter, 444. 

, Grassmann, 426, 435. Ruegg, 450. 
' Graser, 762. Ratich, 429, 764. 

Harder, 443. Rousseau, 423, 764. 

llariiisch. 435. Schumacher, 449. 

Ti;clinical Element in Kindergarten, 524. 631. 
Temperament and character, 312, .315. 
' Theatricals, Froebel's experience, 32. 
Thinking, without intuition, unfruitful, 420, 432. 
ThinkiuLC and speaking exercises, 435, 436. 
Third (-ift, 85, 600, 609, 644. 
I Third Gift, Nature and Uses, 85. 94, 755. 
Thought, Laws of developed, 432. 
' 'I hompson, Mrs. Elizabeth, .324, 624. 
Tone and color, analogies, 692. 

Use of colors in teaching musical notation, 701. 
Tonic-sol-fa method, 693. 
Tools in Chay Modeling. 683. 
Touch, Sense of, 92, 365, 563. 
Tfiys, and Kindergarten material, 16, 769. 

Too expensive and complete, 85. 
Trades, Aptitudes for, 631, 673, 679, 714. 
Training, general principles, 495. 

Sngirestions on early, 737, 7.50. 

Kindergartner.-, 451, 533, 557, 623, 071. 



Transformation, Froebel's Law, 859. 
Transition from home to school. 629. 
Transition class from Kindergarten, 478, 537, 557. 
Trust and Faith, 284, 661. 
Tyndall on color, 673. 

Understanding, sum of two or more conceptionB,.301 
United States, Department of Education, 3, 557. 

Kindergartens in, 5, 550. 
Unity of Life, Froebel's law. 111, 115, 358, 364, 615. 
Unity of sense impressions and intuitions, 418. 
Unity of light, love, and life, in God, 325, 328, 723. 
Unity, 41,18.3, 214, 225. 
Unity and Diversity, .357. 
Universe, God, Nature, Man, 216. 

Unity and Law, 217. 
Universal German Institution, 84. 
Universal Human Culture, 292, 326. 
Utilities, in Froebel's occupations, 614. 
Unselfishness, Nurture of, 707, 719. 
Utterance of a child, the first, 99, 161, 179. 

Vanity in children, 248. 

Van Kirk, Miss, Kindergartner in Phil., 11, 735. 

Van Wagenen, Mary L., Parochial Kind., 730. 

Vegetable World, and the child, 213, 267, 603. 

Violence with children, 659. 

Virtue and morality, how attained, 199, 509. 

Vocation, Aptitudes and education for, 363, 626. 

Froebel's choice, 31. 
Vocal music, 256, 700. 
Vogel, Schools of Leipsic, 425. 
Voluntary work pleasurable. 91, 633, 639. 
Volter, on object teaching, 427. j 

Vorman, cited, 428. 

Walk, the child's learning to, 565. 

Different with the young animal, 565. 
Walker, Dr. W., Training of Nurses, 547. 
Walter, Louis, Marenholtz-Bulow Work, 149. 

S'roebel-Literature, 127, 159. 
Want and Wickedness, Relations of. 715. [101. 
Wartensee, Froebel's institution in Switzerland, 79, 
Watering-Pot, Froebel's hand-game. 238. 
Watts, Isaac, Hymns for children, 381, 385. 
Webster, Ira, Publisher in 1844 of N. B. Primer, 381. 
Wearving of pupils to be avoided, 829. 
Weather-cock, Froebel's game, 233. 580. 
Weston, Miss, and Miss Garland's Institute, 11, 559. 
Westminster shorter Catechism, .390.* 
Wheat, Kindergarten lesson on, 460. 
Wheelock, Lucy, Translations by, 21, 82f 125. 
Whole duty of man. School-book of 1659, 409. 
Why and How, of Things, 661, 671. 
Wieland, cited, 136. 
Will, and will-power, 302, 453, 638. 
Willisau, Froebel's school for girls in Switz., 79. 
Wiseman, Cardinal, 673. 716. 
Woman's mission, 8.3, 3.36, 677. 

Deficient education, 655. 
Words and things, 323. 
World-law, or law of balance, 211. 
Wordsworth, William, cited, 583, 637, 723,752. 
Work, the basis of morality and education, 221, 254. 

Conscious, or productive action, 279. 
Work-School, 689. 
Worship, Child's first ideas of, 179, 275. 

Yellow Color in Music, 696. 

Young children. Suggestions respecting, 737-752. 

Youths' behavior. School Reader in 1659, 411. 

Young Women's Christian Associations, 666. 

Youth, an epoch in education, 625. 

Yverdon, Froebel's residence at, 38. 

Zeh, School Councillor, Report on Keilhau, 105. 
Zoology, Subject for Intuitive Teaching, 503. 



THE KINDEEGAETEN AND ITS FOUNDES. 



PREFATORY NOTE.* 

To aid parents and teachers to a thorough understanding of the 
Kindergarten — its genesis and growth, its theories and philosophy, 
its method and processes, and to some extent its relations to other 
systems of early training — is the object of this publication. Our 
hopes of a better popular education for our country and the world 
rest on the universal understanding and recognition in the family 
and the school, of the fundamental ideas of Froebel as to the law of 
human development, and of the intuitional method of both Festa- 
lozzi and Froebel, as the surest process at once of mental discipline 
and valuable attainment. 

In Froebel's letter to the Duke of Meiningen, as published by 
Dr. "Wichard Lange, we have the key to some of the mental peculi- 
arities of the founder of the Kindergarten in his own family, school, 
and self training ; and in his letter to the Princess Sophia of Rudold- 
stadt on the system of Pestalozzi we find the germs of that child 
culture which it was the blessed results of his restless and self- 
sacrificing life-work to develop and mature. The gradual ripening 
of the Kindergarten is shown in his letters to Barop in 1829, and 
again in 1836 and 1839, until, in 1840, he appeals to the women of 
Germany " to assist in founding an institution for the nurture of 
children, which shall be named Kindergarten, on account of its inner 
life and aim." 

In the published observations and experience of many thoughtful 
educators and teachers in our own and other countries, we have aids 
to a fuller understanding of the underlying principles of Froebel, to 
such modifications of his Kindergarten method and processes, as 
peculiarities of individual children, or family and national surround- 
ings may demand, and, above all, to such changes in the subjects and 
methods of existing primary instruction, as will make the transition 
from improved home and Kindergarten training to the School, easy 
and progressive. If the Kindergarten is to form an integral part of 
the popular education of our country, its aims and methods must be 
felt in the Public Primary School. 

• Froebel, Kindergarten, and Child Culture Papers : Republished from The Americ«n 
Journal of Education, Henry Barnard, LL.D., Editor, Hartford, 1881. 756 pages, 
American Froebel Union Edition. $3.50. 



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